Intrepid
by CeruleanSlane
Summary: Once upon a time, three girls bullied a fourth until a tragedy occurred. In the aftermath of that tragedy, all four embark on their own separate paths through the complicated world of capes. Worm AU focusing on the separate viewpoints of Taylor, Emma, Madison, and Sophia. They each have their own stories to tell, their own friends, teams, and enemies. Let's see how they do.
1. Arc 1: The Spirit Of Things

_**Notes:** Okay, so first of all don't worry. There will be more of Atonement. I was simply in the mood to try something different in the same universe to give myself a chance to write from the start again with a slightly different concept. This story, Intrepid, will run concurrently with Atonement, though the two are completely unrelated. There will be four separate POV subjects in this story, each following a different character with a different group. They will be: Emma with the Undersiders, Madison as an independent, Sophia with the Wards, and Taylor with Faultline's Crew. How all of that comes about will become more clear as things go on. _

_In any case, have fun reading, and please let me know what you think._

 **1-01 – Emma**

 _ **April 11th, 2011**_

"Hey, Woody, Sophia's on the phone. Again." That was my older sister, Anne, of course. She was the only one who called me Woody, after the old cartoon woodpecker. He had been my favorite character when I was a kid, since his hair was like mine. I'd wanted to be just like him, so when Anne had started calling me by the name, I had actually enjoyed it. Still, it was **our** thing.

Well, ours and one other person's, one other girl who had been allowed to call me Woody along with my sister. She had practically _**been**_ a sister. Before I fucked everything up. Before I ruined everything.

Anne was at the doorway of my bedroom with our family's little used cordless in her hand. I wasn't sure why we still had that thing considering we all had our own cells. Pretty much the only people that called on it were telemarketers or scammers. Not that there was much of a difference.

Standing with the phone held out, Anne added, "She said she tried your cell and couldn't get through."

Oh, right. And people we didn't _want_ to talk to on our cells. They used the house phone too. And now that Anne had so graciously made it obvious that I was here, I had no choice but to rise from the bed where I had been sitting and step over to take the handset from her.

"Look," Anne kept her hand over the receiver before I could take it. "I don't know what's going on between you two, or if it has to do with what happened to Taylor. But if you don't want to talk to this girl anymore, you need to make it clear to _her_ instead of just not picking up the phone."

"Gee thanks," I snapped without thinking. "Do you have an advice column I can subscribe to?"

Anne's expression changed and she released the phone before spinning on her heel to walk out of the room. I regretted what I'd said immediately and called after her, "Wait, Anne, I was just-" But my bedroom door closed behind her, leaving me facing the tall mirror that was mounted to it.

For a second, I just stared at myself. A detached part saw what other people noticed when they looked at me, a sixteen year old girl with red hair and curves in all the right places. Not so long ago, I had thought that my appearance, the fact that people thought I was beautiful enough to model, meant that I was somehow _better_ than others. Better than _her._ I had reveled in their looks of admiration, secretly pleased at the knowledge that boys liked to sneak glances at me when they thought I didn't know.

My hair wasn't long anymore. In a fit of frustration and emotion, I had hacked about half of it off shortly after... after everything had gone wrong. I had spent almost an hour just staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, wondering who exactly was staring back at me, my mind spinning through everything bad I had done, every betrayal I had committed to get to that point. Finally, I had stormed from the bathroom to the kitchen, grabbed my mother's fabric scissors, and started hacking away at the long, glorious red hair that I had been so in love with for so long. Snip after snip, I'd wanted it all gone.

I'd butchered the job, of course. The cuts had been jagged and uneven, with part of my hair still reaching my shoulders while other parts were cut up around my ears. I had been sobbing, hacking away at my hair with such blind vigor that it was a wonder I hadn't cut myself. All I'd known was that I desperately didn't want to be **me** anymore. I wanted to be anyone else.

Maybe I would have cut myself, maybe I would have done even worse things with those scissors, if something else hadn't happened first, if my life hadn't changed in a completely different way. But something else had happened, the person I was had been changed to make me fundamentally different from the person that I had been before in a way far beyond a simple haircut.

My parents had been horrified, of course, though neither of them really said much about it. My father gave me the money to get my hair fixed into the pixie cut that it was now, and my mother said that my emotion was 'understandable'. Still, I heard them talking to each other when they thought I couldn't hear them, and I knew that they thought there was something terribly wrong with me.

If only they knew what kind of girl I was, what kind of evil I'd done. If only I could tell make them understand.

Realizing that I had been standing there for several seconds now, staring at myself in the bedroom mirror, I lifted the phone to my ear. Still, it took a moment before I found my voice. "Hello."

"Jeeze, _**there**_ you are." Sophia's voice came through. I could hear the annoyance that she was trying to mask. "Are you sure you didn't move to Mars or something? It's so hard to get hold of you lately."

For a moment, I said nothing. It took a couple of seconds for me to adapt myself to the personality that I needed Sophia to hear. Staring at myself through that hesitation, I breathed in and then out before pitching my voice to sound harried and annoyed, but cheerful. "Oh god, you have noooo idea. I'd love to go to Mars, maybe I wouldn't have to work at the damn hospital so much."

Sophia groaned in return. "You too? Shit, you should see how much work they've got me doing in the PRT building. Fuck, with the way they're acting, you'd think we killed the little freak or something."

No, we hadn't killed Taylor. But in some ways, what we had done was worse. At least death was a release, an ending. The Taylor that had come out of the locker full of bloody tampons that we had shoved her into hadn't been the same Taylor that had gone into it. When the janitor had pulled her out of that horrible place, she had been... wrong, broken. Something inside her, something inside the girl that had been my best friend before I betrayed her, had snapped. Taylor had become catatonic, never reacting to what anyone said. She just stared off into space, hardly blinking, hardly moving save for occasionally curling herself into strange, awkward positions that looked horribly uncomfortable. She didn't feed herself, and gave no indication that she knew who anyone was or what they were saying. She wasn't dead, but she was, for all intents and purposes, gone.

"Hey, yo." Sophia's voice was louder, calling me back from my wandering thoughts. "You there?"

"Yeah," I replied, shaking myself out of it and forcing my voice into as casual of a tone as I could make it. "Sorry, just making sure I've got everything ready to go to the hospital tonight."

"Fuck, seriously?" Sophia sighed. "They're really working you to the bone, huh? Hey, did you ever get a chance to ask that doctor guy who gave us up? It was Madison, wasn't it? I knew she was a pussy."

She was right, in a way. It had been Madison who had told the authorities about what we had done that led to Taylor's current state. But I had been there as well. We had both told the truth and the result had been... probation and community service. We'd gotten a slap on the wrist. I'd been assigned to the hospital, Sophia was doing extra work around the PRT building where, as one of the Brockton Bay Wards she spent a lot of time anyway, and Madison was assigned to the local parks where she picked up garbage, pulled weeds, and trimmed the grass, among other things.

They had _**not**_ removed Sophia from the Wards team. Of course not. After all, Taylor hadn't died, and she wasn't able to complain now. To them, it was a case of a prank gone too far, hardly something to remove one of their super-special teen superheroes from her position.

Sophia didn't know who exactly had told the truth about what we'd done. The authorities had kept that much secret, saying only that it was an 'anonymous source.' I think they did that because they felt at least a bit bad about the fact that they weren't doing anything more to stop Sophia, and knew how she would react if she knew that Madison and I had been the ones to 'betray her.' They were throwing us a bone by 'protecting us', for whatever that was worth. That or they were afraid of my dad's reaction. He was a lawyer, and he had been fanatic about protecting his little girl, even from herself. He refused to let me testify without him there, and he'd constantly ordered me not to answer questions that I _**wanted**_ to answer. He'd said it was for my own good, but we still hadn't talked much in the last couple of months. I couldn't stand to look at him and know that he was part of the problem.

I would have preferred if they had thrown us all into juvenile detention. At least that would have been something. At least that would have shown that Taylor **mattered.** But this? This was wrong. So wrong.

That had been the day before I freaked out and started cutting my hair off. After all that had happened, finding out that they were only giving us _**community service**_ had made me take those scissors and ruin one of my most defining features. It had the thing that drove me into a state where I might have done worse things with those scissors, if my life hadn't changed in a completely different way.

"No," I shook my head before Sophia could press me again. "It wasn't Madison. She's in trouble just like we are, remember?" Part of me wanted to scream that it had been both of us, that Madison and I had both told the truth and that I never wanted to see her psychotic face again. But I didn't. Not because I actually wanted to be friends with Sophia, but because I didn't want her to know just how much I despised her, and myself. I didn't want her to know that until I found some way of getting Taylor the justice that she deserved, the justice that the PRT and the authorities had refused to deliver.

No, this was justice that I was going to have to find on my own, without any help. Luckily, that wasn't impossible, not anymore. It was going to take work and training, but that was part of why I had been so impossible for Sophia to reach lately. When I wasn't working at the hospital, I had been busy preparing. And tonight would be the first test, the first trial run to see if I was ready for the next step. It would be my first night going onto the streets and trying to help people who couldn't help themselves.

I was so nervous I felt sick inside. Part of me wanted to put it off for next weekend, but I knew that if I did that, I would keep doing it. I would put it off to the _**next week**_ , and then the week after that. No, it was time. If I was serious about this, if I was serious about being a better person and finding a way to help Taylor the only way that I could, I needed to go out **tonight.**

"So you reaaaaaaaally don't have time to hit the mall?" Sophia cajoled. "We could hit up Frederick's and then get some ice cream. You know you want it. C'mon, it won't take that long."

"Sorry." I wasn't. "You know how they get when I'm late. Maybe tomorrow or something."

Murmuring an apology in response to her obvious disappointment, I disconnected the phone and dropped the handset onto my bed. After checking to make sure my door was locked this time, I crossed to the closet and opened the door. Digging into the back, I found what I was looking for, the costume that I had put together out of what I had been able to both scrounge and order with the credit card that my father provided. He'd been happy enough thinking that I was getting new clothes, and hadn't bothered to pay attention to _what_ I was actually ordering.

It wasn't a complicated affair, because I had been worried about attracting attention. The base part of the 'costume' itself mainly consisted of a pair of dark red pants, red running shoes with black laces and soles, and a black long sleeved shirt with a sort of red pattern sprinkled over it almost like glitter. It looked a lot like bright red dust that had just been dumped over the shirt in a random pattern.

To that, I had added a black ski mask that had a pair of plastic, eye-protecting lenses built in. The lenses looked red on the outside, and were too dark to see through. On the inside, however, the view was as normal and clear as looking through a clear window.

Besides the mask, I also had a pair of what were apparently called SAP gloves. They were red leather, and had some kind of powdered metal built into the knuckles. It was like wearing brass knuckles, except that they were much more subtle. Plus, the SAP gloves supposedly distributed their concussive force evenly to help ensure a knock-out from the blow, as opposed to the brass knuckles themselves where the point was to concentrate the force into a small area in order to do tissue damage.

I had done a lot of reading on subjects like that over the past couple of months, along with the self-defense lessons that I had needled my parents into letting me take, ostensibly just so that I wouldn't feel helpless. But tonight, there would be no more reading. Tonight, I was going to actually _**do**_ something.

* * *

At least, I was going to do something if any opportunity cared enough about my first night 'on patrol' to actually show itself. Instead, I had been wandering along the Docks area of town, a part of the city that my parents constantly forbade me from going, looking for people to help. Thus far, the sum total of my experience amounted to two different hookers propositioning me, another one shouting at me to get the hell off her turf, a homeless guy begging for change (I gave him the ten dollar bill that I still had buried in my pockets from getting lunch the day before), and a pack of wild cats that took _severe_ offense to my presence in their alley.

Being a cape was harder than it looked. Harder than Sophia made it seem, that was for sure. All I'd heard from her for years now was how many thugs she had to beat the crap out of every night. She had made it sound as though she and she alone was holding back the tide of a crime wave about to topple the city into anarchy.

I, meanwhile, was seriously considering calling it a night and going home.

"Where are those little bitches?" The voice coming from the opposite end of the alley that I was walking through startled me, and I looked up to see a group of Asian guys standing around the mouth of the alley.

They hadn't noticed me yet. Another of the men used a bat that he was holding to smack the nearby wall with a clang. "All I know is, I'm gonna break that cocky Gweilo's face open with this. See how much she wants to talk about my mother with a broken skull."

"Fuck that," Another man spat. "I just want to put my knife in her throat. She won't talk so much then."

Oh god. Oh jeeze. A bunch of armed Asian gang members? This wasn't a couple random muggers, this was the ABB. This was far beyond what I had been looking for. And yet, they were talking about hurting people, about **killing** them. Could I live with myself if I didn't _try_ to do something?

The police. I had the disposable cell phone that I had bought. I could call the police.

Unfortunately, before I could do more than take a single step backward, someone shoved me hard from behind. I went sprawling forward with a yelp, turning over to see another of the Asian men standing there with a metal pipe in his hand. He laughed and called out something in a language that I didn't understand, then pointed at me with the pipe.

"Doesn't look like one of them," one of the others called back after giving me a brief look. "Doesn't matter though. Put her down and we'll toss her in with the rest of them."

The man with the pipe shrugged and then reared back. He brought that pipe down toward my head while I lay sprawled on the ground, frozen in fear.

At the last second, I remembered that I wasn't helpless. As that pipe came whistling down, I _focused_.

The sensation that came over me was similar to diving into a cold pool. A shiver went through me, and I stared for a brief second at the pipe. It hung suspended in the air, frozen along with the man who held it. His face was twisted in dismissive arrogance that was clear even through the faint red haze that hung over the entire area. Everything looked like I was seeing it through a red filter, from the man frozen with the pipe in front of me, to the equally frozen men a short distance away.

Meanwhile, my own body looked normal, except for being somewhat transparent. I could, if I squinted, see through myself. I had also found that it was possible for me to go through objects, similar to the way that Sophia did. And I was weightless, able to float at will.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of downsides. I couldn't interact with anything in this state, for one. For another, I couldn't breathe. I could only 'hold' the state for as long as I could hold my breath. And similar to doing that, I needed a few seconds of recovery after doing it once to catch my breath and do it again. The more often I did it, the more tiring it was. At first I had only been able to do it once or twice every fifteen minutes or so, but like any muscle, it got better the more I stretched it. Still, I couldn't use it indefinitely, and I needed that few seconds in between uses to collect myself.

Rising from the ground, I moved straight through the pipe with my ghost-like form, along with the man himself. Turning once I was behind him, I let the effect drop.

The view turned back to normal, the red haze vanishing. Air rushed back into my lungs, and the man yelped as my body seemed to, from his point of view, abruptly vanish. His pipe clanged off the ground where my head had been, and he stumbled forward.

Before he could recover, I took two steps forward and kicked him as hard as I could between the legs from behind. My foot made solid impact, and he went down with a squeal, dropping the pipe in the process.

"Well lookie there." One of the men said, ignoring the fallen man. "Looks like we _do_ have another cape to deal with after all. Teleporter, huh? Guess what, we got one of those too."

The men parted to reveal another figure, who stood staring at me from behind one of those evil-looking Chinese demon masks with the leering smile. As soon as I saw him, every thought that I might be able to get through this all right dropped out my head with an almost audible thunk.

Oni Lee.

I was so dead.

 **1-02 – Emma**

The instant after I saw Oni Lee, there was only one thing on my mind: getting away without being maimed or killed. He was so far outside of my league that it would have made me cry if I hadn't had so much energy tied up in trying not to pee myself. He was a trained, deadly assassin. I was a stupid girl with a parlor trick who thought she could do some good by wandering aimlessly on the streets.

I was an idiot, and I was about to get myself killed for it.

The by now familiar red filter fell over my vision as I retreated into my time-stop space. My fear of the man in the demon mask drove me to spin around, intending to escape. In the back of my head, I told myself that if I got far enough away, I could use my phone to call the cops, or even report the presence of a villain cape to the PRT. That would be helpful, right? I didn't actually have to _fight_ this psychopath.

Unfortunately, spinning around brought me face to face with the very same leering demon mask that I had been trying to run away from. Oni Lee had already teleported behind me, and his hand was frozen in mid-motion on its way down toward my face with one of his many knives clutched within it.

Obviously, spinning to flee from a monster in what was pretty much _already_ toeing the line toward blind panic, only to practically run face first into the knife he was using to stab you from behind was utterly terrifying. My heart leapt into my throat and I let out an squeal while literally falling backwards.

Even worse, my surprise made me lose focus, so the real world snapped back into real time. The only thing that saved me from taking that knife right to the forehead and prematurely ending my career as a cape within thirty seconds of it _starting_ was the fact that I was already falling down.

To Oni Lee, it must have looked as if he was bringing his knife into the neck of an unsuspecting girl from behind, only to have her abruptly switch positions to be facing _toward_ him while also falling onto her ass. And screaming, because obviously all the best heroes scream when faced with danger.

The good news was, naturally, that I wasn't dead. The bad news was that I hadn't avoided the knife _entirely_. My arms had reflexively flailed upward to shield my face as I fell, and that blade had sliced straight through the sleeve of my shirt, cutting into my arm just above the elbow. Compounded with the fact that I had fallen hard enough onto my backside to leave bruises, and this fight was going about as well as a teenage girl versus a trained assassin _could_ go.

Actually, with **that** in mind, I was doing _better_ than I should have. Go me. A whole three seconds into this and I wasn't dead yet.

Of course, that particular fact was something that Oni Lee apparently meant to correct. I'd barely had time to hit the ground and register both the pain in my back and the pain in my arm before I caught a glimpse of the masked man snapping his hand down.

Reflex saved my life then, as I jumped back into my time-stop state **just** in time to find myself face to face with that knife once more. The man had expertly thrown it at me, and I had stopped time just before it would have gone straight through the red lens of my ski mask to embed itself in my eye. It was so close that if I hadn't been wearing that mask (and been incorporeal), blinking might have shaved off some of my eyelash. A fraction of a fraction of a second later and I would have been dead.

Miraculously, _this_ time I avoided losing my focus. Rolling away from the knife, I came to my feet and looked around. Those men with the guns were still at one end of the alley, and as I looked the other way, I saw another group coming around the corner. The alley was too long for me to get past either group and completely out of sight before they could react. And as if that wasn't bad enough, my panic was making it harder to hold my breath for as long as I'd been able to during practice. Apparently there was a rather massive difference between not breathing in the safety of my own home or school, and not breathing in the middle of an actual, genuine fight. I was afraid, and so my body wanted to hyperventilate. Instead, it was forced not to take any oxygen at all. That wasn't working very well, and it was making it harder for me to think straight, which was making that whole breathing thing worse.

Finally, I thought to look up. Spotting a fire escape, I let myself float up and off of the ground. This was a trick that I hadn't been brave enough to test very much, but lifting myself vertically wasn't all that hard. I pretty much just looked at the direction I wanted to go and... went, even if that direction was up.

Making it as far as the second landing of the fire escape before my lungs felt like they would burst, I dropped onto it while letting time go back to normal.

Below me, there was a metal clang as the knife that Oni Lee had thrown rebounded off of the sidewalk. One of the men shouted, wanting to know where I went, and I could see the assassin himself fall into a pile of white ash. He had already teleported somewhere else.

Intent on getting out of sight, I pushed myself up and took a few deep breaths, preparing to use my power again. Unfortunately, one of the men below spotted me before I could, shouting something in what I thought was Mandarin that probably amounted to 'the idiot is on the fire escape, kill her!'

Here's the thing, gunshots are _**loud**_. In the confined space of an alley, they're even louder. I heard something like a car backfiring several times, and something ricocheted off the metal bar of the fire escape within a few inches of my head. They were shooting at me. _**They were shooting at me.**_

The fact that that was only the _second_ most terrifying thing to happen to me so far in the last two minutes said some pretty horrible things about how this night was going.

And speaking of things that were even scarier than being shot at, I felt the metal of the fire escape shift suddenly as Oni Lee's weight settled onto it just ahead of me. The man lashed out with a blindingly fast kick. I could stop time, but I could only do that at the speed of my own thought and reaction. In that moment, I was too busy being terrified, so the kick took me right in the chest. The metal railing smacked me hard in the waist as I was thrown backwards, and then I was tumbling off of the landing with a cry, falling back toward the ground.

Freezing time once more, I found myself floating in the air, fighting the urge to throw up from the hard kick to the chest, to say nothing of the blind fear that had taken hold of me.

Rolling over in the air, I brought myself closer to the ground. Ahead of me, I could see the gathered men all aiming their guns up toward where I had been. A couple of tiny metal objects in my path showed that some of them had already been shooting. If I hadn't frozen time right when I had, I wouldn't even have lasted long enough to actually hit the ground.

Behind the men I could see a different figure, the exact **same** figure that had just kicked me off of the fire escape. Oni Lee had already abandoned his place up there, probably because he was about as eager to be shot at by these trigger happy assholes as I was. He'd kicked me out into their path and then jumped back to safety.

Knowing that I wouldn't be able to hold my breath for that much longer, I dropped straight to the ground. Feeling my lungs shouting their complaints, I aimed for the nearby dumpster. At any other time, I probably would have been grossed out by what I was about to do. At that moment, however, all I could think about was getting out of sight. Passing through the closed lid, I found that the good news was that the dumpster wasn't _full_. On the other hand, it wasn't empty either. This was going to suck.

Fortunately, I wasn't _so_ vapid (anymore) that being in a garbage can or being shot was some kind of hard choice. Releasing my power, I breathed in air. Which I immediately regretted, because this **particular** air wasn't exactly spring fresh. Still, I forced myself to breathe, while listening to the gunfire outside along with the shouts of the confused men. My foot brushed something sticky, while my hand was shoved against what I could only _hope_ was a half eaten hamburger. God, I wanted to cry.

Outside, I heard one of the men call out a single word in another language that apparently meant for them to stop. Then someone said in English, "Fuck it, let's just put a few bullets in those stupid kids and call it a day. If the baita shows up again, she'll get it too."

Kids? The people they were trying to kill were _kids_? Oh man. Damn it. I couldn't hide from that. No matter how terrified I was, I just couldn't let them leave now. Not if I wanted to live with myself afterward. Abandoning Taylor... no, worse, _ **betraying**_ Taylor had been bad enough. I already deserved no more respect or care than the garbage I was hiding with. If I hid and did nothing while these guys killed some children, I would be _worse_ than scum. I wouldn't deserve to live.

So, after closing my eyes and breathing a couple more times (because I just hadn't had enough of that dumpster air, yum), I used my power again. The world went red, and I stopped feeling the awful, sticky sensation of the rotting garbage around me.

Floating through the side of the dumpster, I found myself back in the alley once more. The men were all frozen in the motion of turning to leave, their two groups merging into one larger whole on their way to, apparently, murder some kids.

Or rather, most of them were. The man that I had kicked between the legs was still leaning against the nearby wall, gathering himself. Spotting what I was looking for on the ground at his feet, I floated that way and went down to one knee. Putting a hand right over the metal pipe that the man had used to attack me, I braced myself and then let time go back to normal. I had to do that so that I could interact with the pipe, or my hand would have gone right through it.

Normal color and sound came back into the scene, but only for a moment. I closed my hand around the pipe while simultaneously taking a deep breath and then immediately used my power again, shutting time down and freezing everyone once more.

Hurrying down the alley while holding the pipe tight in one hand, I literally ran right through the men until I reached the front of the group. Oni Lee was there, that demon mask making my heart thud heavily in my chest, the pain of which reminded me of just how hard he had kicked me.

For a moment, I did nothing but stare into the painted face of that leering demon. Somehow, that ear to ear smile, the mocking grin, morphed in my head to become _my own smile._ I saw myself in that monstrous visage, as Taylor must have seen me toward the end. In that evil, demonic smile I saw what Taylor had probably seen whenever she turned a corner to find me waiting.

Somehow, without planning it, I took that pipe into a two-handed grip and swung as hard as I could. In mid-swing, I let time go back to normal and _**screamed**_ as loud as I could. It was a shout that was filled with as much fear as it was anger. Fear of myself, fear of what I had been, of the man in front of me, of the situation I had put myself in, and of what would happen if Taylor never got better. My terror and revulsion toward the monster that I had been drove my swing.

Oni Lee didn't even have a full second to realize what was happening, because by the time the world shifted back to normal, my borrowed pipe was already about six inches from his face. It connected hard, and I saw the mask crack under the blow as the man himself was pitched to the ground.

Before the men around me could fully react to that, I closed my mouth to stop screaming and took a deep breath. At the same time, I swung the pipe the other way, connecting with the wrist of the nearest ABB thug which knocked the gun from his hand. Then I jumped back into my time freeze just long enough to literally throw myself through the man to my left that was bringing his own gun up to point at where I had just been.

Dropping down while letting time snap back _**again**_ , I heard the gunshot go off from the man that I was now behind. It was loud, and I felt like screaming again but managed to stop myself. Screaming took up air, and I _**needed**_ air to keep using my power. Otherwise, I was dead.

From my crouched position, I swung my pipe hard into the back of the man's knee, dropping him to the ground with a cry. His gun skittered across the pavement, and I jumped back into the time freeze yet again. Even now, I could feel the wooziness that came from using my power too often. I had to keep pushing myself, but I wasn't sure how many more times I could do it.

No choice. I had to keep going. Pushing myself into the air, I pivoted to see Oni Lee back on his feet and standing behind me. His mask had a large crack in it, revealing part of his face. It was _not_ a happy looking face. Again, I swung my pipe two-handed and let time go back to normal.

Unfortunately, this time the pipe passed right through the man as he collapsed into white ash. Realizing what that meant, I froze time **again** and spun back the other way. Another Oni Lee was behind me, but before I could do anything about that fact, I lost hold of my breath. Time rushed back to normal while my traitorous body sucked in oxygen just in time for the man to nail me with another kick that put me back on the ground.

Apparently he was done playing with me, because he didn't draw a knife that time. Instead, the man yanked a small spherical object that I belatedly realized what a grenade from his bandoleer.

 _A grenade?_ _ **Seriously?**_

My eyes widened with shock behind my mask, knowing that I wasn't ready to use my power again. Not after it had just failed on me only a few seconds earlier.

Then, rather than drop the grenade on me, I saw the man's arm jerk suddenly to the side. The grenade went flying off down the alley, scattering the men who saw it coming. There was an explosion of noise that made the gunfire sound like the little white popper fireworks that Taylor and I used to play with as kids. The dumpster that I had hid in went flying with a hole in the side.

Before I could even try to figure out what Oni Lee had found so much more threatening about that dumpster than me (besides absolutely everything), his body faded into white ash again.

I still couldn't hear properly, but my _eyes_ were working just fine. Though my brain disputed that fact as I saw a monstrous creature, as big as a truck, land on the pavement between me and the surrounding ABB soldiers. It looked like some cross between a jaguar and a lizard, and I couldn't help the cry of fear that escaped me.

"Take my hand!" A voice demanded from somewhere on top of the lizard... animal... thing. I finally lifted my gaze to find a figure in black motorcycle leathers with a matching helmet that had a skull stylized on the front of it. He was holding his arm out toward me from his perch on the back of the creature.

Gaping for another second, I slowly reached my hand up and took his. The man in black hauled me up and off of the ground easily. I found myself suddenly plopped onto the back of the monster, behind the guy in motorcycle leathers. There was someone else ahead of him, but I couldn't make out more than what looked like a white mask and some kind of crown on his head.

"Go." The man in black urged, and the monster we were on took three bounding steps away from the ABB members, nearly knocking me off in the process.

"Hold on," the guy who had pulled me onto this monster urged. "It's not the ABB we have to worry about now, it's getting away from those guys."

He pointed, and I turned to see three police cars and PRT van parked not ten feet away. The officers had their weapons out as they stared directly at us. One of them shouted for us to stop, but the monster I was sitting on leapt all the way up and over the gathered vehicles. I screamed in spite of myself and grabbed onto the waist of the guy in leather.

Behind us, the police cars reversed out of their spots and turned to follow.

"Why are they chasing us?!" I managed to get out, my head spinning.

It wasn't the guy in leather who answered, but the other, the one wearing the crown. "Man, you _must_ be new at this. Chasing is usually what they do to bad guys. It's kind of their job."

Bad guys? Wait... wait...

Huh?

 **1-03 – Taylor**

My wings beat the air rapidly as I climbed higher, away from the tree that I had been perched on for the last several minutes. Someone walking past beneath my branch had disturbed me, so I flew with fast, hard wing beats to the next tree over before pecking once at a caterpillar that was inching its way along the bark. One snap of my small beak and the bug was gone.

As the still wiggling food made its way to my stomach, my head cocked backward toward the thing that had unwittingly driven me from my previous perch. At the same time, I let out a shrill chirp of warning to stay away. My searching eyes found a man in a drab gray business suit, walking hurriedly toward a car in the nearby lot while talking rapidly on his cell phone. As I chirped again, louder, the man turned his head slightly to look up at me. Our eyes met.

 _A girl sitting in the corner of a room, the lights dimmed to allow her the opportunity to sleep. Her eyes gaze at a tiny spot on the wall, while a tiny spot of drool dots the corner of her lip. Long, dark hair, her one source of pride in her appearance, lays limp against her shoulders. She is alone._

I'm walking at a brisk pace along the sidewalk after turning away from the bird that had been disturbed by my exit. As I strode toward my car, I continued to berate the person on the other side of the phone that was held to my ear. No, I didn't want to go to over to Dan and Margaret's for dinner. Didn't she know the game was in a couple hours? No, I can't watch the game there. Dan's television is the size of a god damn postage stamp. Can't they come over to our place? Well, how was I supposed to know the stove still wasn't working? Order out, we'll eat Thai or something. Yes, I know what your mother said. Of course I want to talk to you, as long as it's not in the middle of the game.

By the time the phone call had ended, I was in my car, reversing out of the lot with a frustrated sigh. Making the turn onto the busy road took even more time, which I spent drumming my fingers along the steering wheel, loudly complaining to myself in the empty car.

Just as I was about to pull onto the _finally_ clear road, a boy on a skateboard came rolling out of nowhere across my line of sight. My foot _**stabbed**_ at the brake, jolting the car to an abrupt stop while I leaned on the horn and bellowed after the dumbass kid for nearly making me hit him. The boy rolled onward, turning a bit to gaze back at me while lifting his middle finger lazily. Our eyes met.

" _Taylor?" A male nurse crouches next to the corner where the girl has moved herself. She doesn't move often, but when she does it's almost always to put herself either in this corner or the one next to the doorway. He doesn't know why she likes it in the corners so much, but if it makes her even a little bit happier, they don't question it too much. The doctors aren't even sure exactly what the problem is. She isn't strictly catatonic, because she will eat if food is pressed into her mouth, and guiding her to the bathroom will result in the appropriate measures being taken. But other than that and occasionally pushing herself from the bed to these corners, she shows little to no reaction to stimuli._

" _I've got your dinner here, Taylor. Are you ready to eat?" His eyes watch her for any signs of reaction. There are none. Still, he presses on. "Let's see what we've got tonight, huh? Ooh, looks like chicken pasta. Here we go, can you take a bite for me?" The plastic spoon hovered in front of the girl's mouth and lightly touched against it. Obediently, her lips parted and she took the food before mechanically._

I'm rolling along the sidewalk on my board after shooting the red-faced driver of that sweet Pontiac a quick bird. What kind of guy could have a car that cool and still get so pissed off?

The sound of the wheels on my board rhythmically hitting the cracks in the sidewalk has a nice lulling effect, and I forget the angry man. Coasting down the next hill, I easily swerve to avoid the woman walking her dog, greeting both her and her four-legged companion by name while giving her golden retriever a casual two finger salute. He barks once, and I look back that way. Our eyes meet.

 _The nurse is telling the girl about his day. It's a ritual they have, even though the girl never responds. He feeds her patiently, lifting the spoon for her to take one bite at a time, all the while telling her about the sweet new PC rig his roommate bought the day before. He tells the girl about how long his roommate has been saving up for that particular computer, and how long it took them to get it set up._

I'm trotting along next to the woman holding my leash. My nose sniffs the ground eagerly, hunting for just the right spot to do my business, an unmarked, unclaimed area. Finally finding an appropriate stretch of fence, I pace around it a couple of times, then lift my leg and...

Taylor. Taylor. I'm Taylor. I'm not a dog. I know who I am. I'm Taylor Hebert. My father is Danny. My mother's name was Annette. She died in a car crash. I'm a person, a human being. I'm not here on the sidewalk with this dog and the woman walking him. I'm in the hospital, at the psychiatric wing. My vision was here, but my body, my _**person**_ was back in that hospital room.

I know those things. I know this isn't real, that the people and animals whose bodies I find myself a helpless passenger in aren't me. It's just... hard, so hard to focus. It's so easy to forget and let myself be carried away. Sometimes it's only for a few minutes, while other times days pass before my consciousness struggles to the top, like an ocean diver finally surfacing.

I am the dog, yet I'm not. I see through the dog's eyes, feel what it feels, smell what it smells, and so on. I see everything through the point of view of the dog, which makes it so hard to cling to my own thoughts. They drift, and minutes pass before my struggling mind forces another coherent thought: _Dad._ Where is he? Is he okay? Has he already visited me today? Did I miss it? How long was I gone this time? How long was I away on this latest episode?

It takes effort, more than I can muster some days, but somehow I muster the concentration to force my point of view to change. I need to go back. I need to go back to my body.

Something like a blink comes, and then I'm there. Or at least as close as I can get. I can see my body. Rather than seeing through my own eyes, my point of view somehow encompassed the entire room. It was like standing in the middle of an area and having three hundred and sixty degree vision, yet somehow even more than that. I could see everything at once, no matter what direction someone was facing. I was able to simultaneously watch every part of this space. Even when someone is looking down, or in the opposite direction from what should have been my point of view, I can somehow see their face. If they're inside my sphere of attention, I can see everything.

I see the male nurse feeding me, and taste the food in my mouth. Yet unlike the dog, the skateboarder, the angry man, or the bird, I can't see through my own eyes. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I focus, I can't force myself back into my own body. Instead, I have this strange, perfect view that shows me the entirety of the room. Yet I can't jump back into my body. I can't open my own eyes and see through them, the way that I can see through the eyes of so many others.

I **can** control it... somewhat, very little gestures that are almost as frustrating in their futility as they are encouraging by the fact that I actually made them happen. Ten minutes of intense work was enough for me to lift my arm the last time my dad visited, yet it was too little, too late. Ten minutes of struggle to give my dad what he'd wanted, a sign that I heard him, that I was alive and conscious in there. By then, it was too late. I'd missed my chance, and he'd already had to leave. My arm had been raised in the middle of a dark, empty room, and I didn't have enough control over my own body to cry.

Sometimes I was even able to exert enough control to order my body to get up and move. Unfortunately, not only did that take hours of undisturbed focus, I could also never control where my body actually _**went**_. It was so hard to even make it stand up and move that trying to control the direction or duration was completely beyond my capability.

Not that that was going to stop me from trying. Every night for months now, or at least every night that I'd been able to focus and wasn't lost behind someone else's eyes, I had spent working on making my body _**move.**_ Fifteen minutes spent forcing my index finger to slowly extend upward, then slowly lower itself. Not much of an achievement, but a hell of an improvement over the half hour it had taken me a month earlier, and an even bigger improvement over the nothing that I'd been capable of at first.

That had been a horrible time. I'd had no idea what was happening to me. My vision had kept jumping between the first person view of the doctors who were examining me, to the overhead view of my own body laying helpless and seemingly empty. At first I'd thought that I was dead, that I'd died in that locker that the trio had shoved me into. Their laughter, their ugly, horrible laughter haunted me. I could still hear it sometimes, the sound muted as though through the walls of the locker that had confined me.

It hadn't taken long for me to realize that I wasn't dead. I had little to no control over my own body, but I wasn't _**dead.**_ I was a parahuman, a cape. That was the only explanation, even if I didn't understand how to use what I could do. Even if it was a 'gift' that made it so hard to control my own body, it was still a gift. I just had to figure out how to use it. I just had to force myself to focus long enough to understand my own abilities. I just had to put the work into _**making**_ my body move.

And I would make it move. If it took me another month, or a month after that, or a month after **that** , I would figure out how to control my own body. I had gone from half an hour to move my index finger, to fifteen minutes. I'd managed to lift my entire arm in ten minutes, spurred by my desperation to communicate with my father, to let him know that I was here. It had been too late, but I'd done it.

No matter how long it took, I would learn how to control my body again.

The nurse continued to feed me while he talked. With each passing moment that I spent this way, viewing my own body from above, the area that I could see _grew._ It was a slow, steady expansion in each direction. What began as a view of only my own little hospital room grew to encompass the rooms on either side of me, as well as the rooms above and below. Somehow, in a way that I couldn't really explain, I could see everything and everyone in those rooms as easily as if I was standing inside that room. From experience, I knew that the sphere of influence, the area that I could see things in, would continue to grow. One time it had grown large enough to encompass the entire hospital. I had been able to pay attention to any particular part of the hospital that I felt like focusing on.

Then my mind had jumped into a passing doctor on his way out to his car, and I had spent hours having my point of view switch into every passing subject that met my gaze. By the time I managed to force my way back into this encompassing view once more, it was back to being only the size of my room.

That was how it worked, I'd come to realize. The longer I maintained the three hundred and sixty degree view, the larger it got. I couldn't focus on everything at once within that view. Rather, it was like a massive screen that kept getting bigger. I could focus on one part of the screen at a time, any part, and experience everything happening within that area. I could focus on one corner and see a janitor mopping the floor on the third floor while he listened to music in his headphones, music that _I could hear_. Or I could shift my attention up to the fourth floor and watch the kids in the pediatrics ward tell ghost stories. As long as it was happening within my sphere of attention, which got larger with every passing minute, I could be there and experience it.

On the other hand, I could also throw my consciousness (usually involuntarily so far) into a specific person, and experience things through their eyes. I couldn't control them, as much as I'd tried, but I saw, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled everything that they did. When I 'switched modes' back to my sphere of attention, it would be back to a small area that would then gradually build up once again.

"Listen, Taylor." The nurse was talking again. I could see his eyes staring intently into mine while simultaneously seeing my own eyes gazing listlessly. He pressed on in spite of my non-reaction. "Remember what I said yesterday?" I didn't. I had been lost on one of my trips the day before. "I'm going to bring her in now, okay? I think... if I'm right, I think she can help you. A friend of mine, she says that this woman has been helping someone else that might have been similar to you. Maybe I'm just being stupid and you're really... catatonic or whatever, but if I'm right, she can work with you.

Wait, what woman? What was he talking about? He knew there was something different about me?

The nurse rose and moved to open the door. My attention drifted through my growing sphere to the hallway on the outside. There, I could see two figures making their way through the hall. From their manner of dress, it was easy to tell that they shouldn't have been in the hospital. The first wore some kind of combination dress-riot gear, and her face was covered by what looked like a welder's mask with a dark pony tail sticking out the back. Meanwhile, the other person was also female, a girl wearing a red and black costume and a gas mask. The two of them had come up the back stairs. How they'd gotten in without attracting attention was beyond me.

They met the nurse in the hall, and he led them back to my room. Standing in the doorway, the girl with the gas mask addressed the nurse by his name, Teddy, and introduced the woman she was with as Faultline.

Faultline. I knew the name. I knew this woman. She was the leader of a group of cape mercenaries that toed the line between hero and villain. But what were they doing here?

After a few seconds of conversation, the woman in the welder's mask stepped into the room. The other two stayed in the doorway.

Faultline crossed the room and sat down across from me. For a moment, she did nothing. Then her hand lifted to push the mask up so that I could see her face. Her intelligent, calculating eyes watched me patiently. How long we sat there in silence, no one speaking, I couldn't say.

Finally, the woman lifted her gloved hand and cupped my cheek. It was a touch that was so gentle, so... caring, that it reminded me of my own mother.

"Your friend here thinks you aren't a normal patient, Taylor," Faultline said quietly. "He thinks you're one of us, a parahuman. He thinks you're trapped in there, somehow. He thinks there's more to this than the doctors can handle, that you need another kind of help."

Her fingers gently brushed my hair back, her voice lowering. "I think he's right. You're in there somewhere, but whatever power you've got, it's holding you back somehow.

"And I'm going to help you."

 **1-04 – Madison**

"Seriously, dude? I'm a teenage girl in a mask wandering around the city in the middle of the night looking for people to punch in the face, and even _**I**_ think you've got issues."

Weak, flickering fluorescent lighting overhead gave the long hallway that I was standing in at the moment an eerie presence. The set of stairs at my back that I had just climbed to reach the third floor of this apartment building were actually somewhat better lit than the corridor itself, meaning that I was more visible standing there than the person I was talking to.

That particular pillar of society and shining example of restraint pivoted on his heel to glare at me with eyes that I knew were bloodshot from both alcohol and anger, even though I couldn't make out his face that well in the weak light. At the man's feet cowered a boy that wasn't that much older than I was. Actually, he was about four months older than I was. His name was Ken and he went to my school. We even had a couple of classes together, but didn't know each other well enough that he'd recognize my voice that easily. At least, I really hoped not. That would have been a rather awkward conversation later: 'Hey Madison, did you beat the crap out of my dad last night after thoroughly mocking him?' 'Err, no, Ken. No way. I was totally busy... gardening in...Venezuela.'

Yup, the sad and kind of dispiriting truth was that the bat-wielding man wasn't some random thug. He was Ken's father. And the scene before me, with Ken cowering on his knees with his head tucked under his arms while his father waved that bat around wasn't new. From what I'd been able to find out, this was a fairly typical weekend for the two of them. Father-son bonding it wasn't.

"Who the fuck are you supposed to be?" The man demanded finally, his words slurred only a little bit considering the amount of alcohol that I was pretty sure he'd put away.

I let my head cock to the side at that, knowing what he was seeing as he looked at me. I wasn't exactly dressed as awe-inspiringly as the Protectorate-affiliated capes did. But seriously, with the materials and allowance that I had to work with, I was lucky my outfit was even color coordinated.

Essentially, the thing that I so optimistically called my 'costume' was little more than a light blue windbreaker with a white symbol on the front left side that looked like a mathematical 'less than' symbol that was open slightly more than normal, or a deformed sideways V. In actuality, it was the Kenaz rune from the runic alphabet of ancient Germanic tribes. The simple meaning of Kenaz was a torch, and it was supposed to illustrate knowledge being revealed, or sudden insights.

Besides the windbreaker I also wore white sweatpants, a matching pair of hiking boots, and gloves that were light blue with a bit of white mixed into a cloud-like pattern. I wore the hood of the windbreaker up and tied closed to cover my hair, while my face was hidden by a white plastic mask with its own facial features and holes for my eyes. In all, I looked more like a person who had thrown together a Halloween costume at the last second out of things that had been left in the bottom of the costume store bargain bin than an actual cape. Which was probably why Ken's father didn't seem too concerned about my sudden arrival when he had been a single swing away from breaking his son's arm yet again.

I adopted a thoughtful posture, tucking my fist against my chin while drumming my fingers over my head. "You know, I thought long and hard about that, and I think I've got a good one but I really need an outside opinion. How does the name Archive grab you?"

Growling angrily, Ken's father took a few stomping steps toward me, bat raised. "Look, kid, I don't care what kind of game you think you're playing out here. Go fucking play it somewhere else. I'm busy."

My response to that was to hop up and down a couple times, clapping my hands. "Oooh, are you playing a game? Can I play? Let me guess, he's the stalwart secret agent, and you're the horrible German interrogator trying to beat his secrets out of him? I could totally be your assistant." I adopted a purposefully _**awful**_ accent then. "Now, you vill gif oos dze plans for dze deas ray, oond ve vill break your kidneys. Oops, ah ah, I meant **or** ve vill break dzem, oof course. Ah hah hah."

For a second, the man just stared at me, until I leaned a little closer to stage-whisper. "Pssst, your line is 'Oond dzen, ve vill put your family onto dze rocket oond shoot dzem into space.'"

Apparently unamused (philistine), the man seemed to be trying to work that out for a second. Then, after either giving up on that or realizing I was mocking him, he bellowed in frustration and swung that bat in a powerful backhand swing that was aimed right for the side of my head.

Fortunately, while my costume itself was horribly lackluster, I _**was**_ prepared for that. As soon as the man began to swing, I focused. An almost electrical tingle immediately spread out over my body. The instant the bat hit the invisible field that I had created about two inches out from my body, it vanished.

The man stumbled forward, taken by surprise by the sudden lack of weight in his hand. He stared down at it uncomprehendingly for a second. "What the..."

"Whoopsie!" I held my hand out, and the bat appeared there, balanced on my palm. "I'm sorry, were you looking for this? I'm just horrible about taking things that belong to other people." When he lunged forward to grab for the bat, I made it disappear once more with a brief activation of my field. Flailing at empty air, the man almost fell into the nearby wall.

Blinded by his anger by that point, Ken's father spun back on me and screamed inarticulately while charging forward like some kind of drunk bull. No longer focused on his bat, the man was clearly intent on barreling straight into my much smaller form and pummeling me with his big, meaty fists.

Rather than let that happen, I dropped into a sideways roll while holding my hand out. A long rope, with one end already coiled into a lasso appeared there. Within two more steps, the man's feet were tangled up in the loop, and I yanked hard on the other end. The force hauled me off the floor and taxed my shoulders, but the man himself was hauled to an abrupt stop in mid-lunge before crashing downward to slam into the floor with a bellow of anger and surprise.

Before he could recover, I pounced on the man's back. He flailed a bit, but the impact had stunned him somewhat, so I was able to get hold of his wrists and tie them together with the other end of the rope.

Jumping backward off of the man while he flailed and flopped around with his arms and legs tied, I gave him a poke with my foot. "Now see, I wasn't really sure about switching from super spies to playing rodeo. But I've gotta hand it to you, that was pretty fun."

"Stupid... fucking... bitch!" The man bellowed, struggling in vain to free himself. "This isn't a game!"

Finally, I dropped my playful tone. "Oh, I know." The bat reappeared in my hand before I poked the man with it. "It's definitely not a game. But see, I figured that only a stupid, immature little _**child**_ would think it was okay to beat up his own son with a god damn baseball bat in the middle of the hallway just because the kid got home late. Or what was the reasoning last week, because he had a C on his report card? Or the week before that, when he dropped a plate? The way I saw it, only someone with the maturity of a _fucking_ four year old would think that was okay. So I was playing down to your level."

Turning away from the man then, while he thrashed and impotently threatened me, I turned back toward the spot where Ken had been cowering. He was standing now, staring at me with wide eyes. There was also an older woman standing somewhat beside him, with one hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Ma'am." I nodded to her. "You live on this floor?" She nodded back toward the door across from Ken's apartment, and I asked, "You know what this guy does to his son?"

In response, the old woman spat at the man on the floor. "Bellowing pig." She tightened her grip on Ken's shoulder, clearly protective. I didn't think they were related, but she clearly cared about him.

Flipping the bat over in my hand, I extended it that way. "Call the police. Tell them the truth about what he does." To Ken, I added, "You hear me? Tell them the truth. Don't let him intimidate you anymore."

He hesitated, clearly hearing his father's threats in the background, but finally nodded.

"Good, go with her." I nodded to the old woman. "I'll stay until the cops arrive, make sure he doesn't go anywhere." Belatedly, I asked the woman, "If that's all right?"

Once more, she spat at the man on the floor before nodding. Her hand tugged Ken backwards, but not before he blurted, "Why'd you do all that? Why are you here? This isn't what capes do."

"Your father's a bully." I answered quietly. "I really don't like bullies."

* * *

Walking along the sidewalk about twenty minutes later, I thought about how stupid those words would have seemed only a few months earlier. Maybe they still were. I hated bullies? I'd _**been**_ a bully, one of the worst. I'd had **fun** making another girl's life completely miserable for more than a year. Not a single school day had gone by that I hadn't either helped make Taylor Hebert's life a living hell, or made plans for how to do so. In hindsight, we had been, among other things, fucking obsessed.

And it wasn't as if I had an excuse, like Ken might have if he'd been the type to lash out. My home life was pretty good. My parents doted on me like I was their princess. Sure, I didn't have much of a relationship with my older brother, Trevor, but he was going to college anyway. Honestly, I was a spoiled little brat, and my way of acting out was helping two other girls humiliate a classmate.

So no, I had no excuse. I was a bitch, and because of me, that girl was laying in the psych ward of the hospital right now, completely catatonic. We'd pushed her too god damn far, and **she** had paid the price.

It should have been us. Hell, Emma and I had tried to tell the truth about what happened, about what we'd done. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Sophia was a member of the local Wards, and they weren't exactly eager to toss away one of their own. They had basically given all of us a collective slap on the wrist involving a bunch of probation and moving us to different schools. Sophia had gone to Arcadia, which was typical considering from all accounts that's where the Wards went anyway. Emma had been moved to Clarendon, while I was left at Winslow. Basically, they acted like what had happened had been little more than a prank gone wrong, leaving out all the additional facts. It made me sick.

I meant that literally. I'd been so upset over the fact that I couldn't do anything for Taylor, that I didn't **know** what to do, that I'd literally made myself sick. I spent several days in my room, lost in grief and confusion over my total helplessness. It was during that time that my power had manifested.

I summoned it now while shrugging out of my jacket and tugging the plastic mask off my face. The familiar electric tingle came, and both objects vanished from my hands.

I wasn't sure yet where they went, only that they were in some private other-space that wasn't accessible by any means other than the invisible field that I could erect around myself at will. I could extend it as far as a foot away from me, or shrink it to be nearly flush with my own skin. _**That**_ had been fun to find out, and only the fact that I had been completely alone in my room the time I first shrank it and made my clothes disappear had saved me from an entire _lifetime_ of embarrassment.

It didn't work on living things, only objects and things like water. I'd drained several bathtubs of water while experimenting, and was even able to shoot that water back out again in a steady, high powered stream. I'd also used it to walk through a solid cement wall simply by extending my field and letting it vanish away the material while I walked forward, leaving an outline of myself behind almost like a cartoon.

But that wasn't the craziest part. Somehow, I was intuitively aware of absolutely everything in the space. I knew exactly what was in there and how much, from the exact amount of water I had taken in, to the number of pens and loose change I had made vanish while experimenting.

What's more, I _knew_ everything about them. If I took my father's hammer from the garage and absorbed it, I knew everything about it. I knew how to use it properly, and I gradually became aware of every way that it had **been** used.

As long as the hammer remained in my other-space, I could recall at a whim every way that it had been used in the past several days. The longer I focused on it, the further back the memories went. It seemed to come out to one year per day the item was in that space, which reset once it was let out again. The same went for the baseball bat that I had taken from Ken's father. I had immediately known both how to use the bat for its intended purpose, the batting skill somehow manifesting inside my head, and exactly how **he** had used it within the past several hours, the latter being knowledge that I really hadn't wanted.

And the books. God, that had been a shock. Any book that I put into my other-space, I somehow knew the contents of just by focusing on it. As long as the book stayed in there, I could access any of the information in it after a few seconds of thought, like using the internet to look something up, only in my own head. It was almost like I had a virtual copy of the book in my mind that I could summon up and read through whenever I wanted to.

For a long time, I hadn't known what to do with this ability. Part of me wanted to go to the Protectorate, but after they'd covered their asses on Sophia and done nothing for Taylor, I'd decided against that.

I even avoided talking to Emma about it, since she had _still_ been hanging out with Sophia. That much had disgusted me. It was like she'd just given up after our attempt to go to the authorities hadn't panned out, and had gone right back to hanging out with that psychopath.

Which meant that I'd been on my own. So I'd spent the last couple of months practicing with my power and planning out what I might be able to do to help people the way that no one had ever helped Taylor.

Learning exactly what caused the bruises and occasional casts that Ken kept showing up with had been my deciding factor. I had to put a stop to it.

In spite of how it might have seemed, I'd been nervous as hell. Mostly I had talked to fill up the air with noise, and because mocking the big, stupid jackass had seemed like the right thing to do.

Shaking my head, I stepped out of the alley just in time to hear a boy shout, "Incoming!"

Spinning on my heel, my eyes went wide as some _**monstrous**_ beast came charging up the street toward me. It looked like a cross between a lizard and a tiger, if they were both bigger than a car. I caught only the briefest glimpse of what looked like at three riders, and then the beast was leaping up and over me while I simultaneously hit the ground with a yelp.

Whatever the monster was, it hit the ground on the other side of me and tore off down the street, leaving me laying on the sidewalk, staring after the thing with my heart hammering a million times a second. The beast, and its riders, disappeared around a corner a moment later, but it took me a bit longer than that to finally pick myself up.

"Okay," I finally spoke aloud, my voice loud against the previous stillness. "What... the hell... was that?"

 **1-05 – Sophia**

I remember the day that my mother brought Steven home for the first time. I remember the way that he stood somewhat awkwardly in our living room as nine-year old me and my older brother Terry came down the stairs at the sound of mom's call. The suit that he wore was too big for him, with worn patches. I found out later that he'd bought it used at one of those secondhand clothing stores.

This, mom told us, was her new boyfriend and she expected us to behave around him. He wasn't a very tall man, as far as that went. He wasn't well-built or anything. But he did have a nice, charming smile. I could always picture it with crystal clarity in the years that followed, even long after he was gone. It was an expression that made both me and Terry smile back at him in spite of his obvious awkwardness.

From that first moment, when the uncomfortable, awkwardly dressed man smiled at us and we smiled back, Steven was almost a constant presence in our home. Not that I minded. Hell, nine-year old me thought he was the funniest, best person ever. He'd tell gross jokes when mom couldn't hear, and when they went out together he always left the babysitter money for pizza.

In fact, for most of that first year that I knew Steven, things were pretty great. So when mom said that he was going to live with us and that they were getting married, well, I had no real objections.

The thing is, in some ways nothing changed. Steven still told gross jokes when mom couldn't hear, and they still went out. He still gave me lots of good ideas for my school projects, and when he was having one of his good days, he was the funniest person in the room. He could make me laugh so much I cried.

But the thing about **living** with someone instead of just letting them visit is that you have to see them when it _isn't_ one of their good days. Because the thing that none of us had realized before Steven moved in was that we only saw him on his 'up' days, rather than his 'down' days. When he was 'up', the man was funny, charming in a sort of awkward way, and definitely a lot of fun. When he was 'down', it was pretty much the opposite. I used to walk in from school and find Steven sitting in a corner of the kitchen with his legs drawn up so that he could bury his face against his knees and cry. A grown man, hiding in the corner of the kitchen floor, sobbing for no fucking reason.

On the 'down' days, Steven's moods were horrible. He'd cry at the drop of a hat, get angry just as easily, and act like the littlest thing was the world ending. And as creative as he was when he was 'up', that same creativity applied when he wasn't. Sometimes when Steven was in a bad mood, he could be flat out mean. Never physically abusive, just... horrible. He'd snap and go on a five minute rant about how fucking stupid and worthless I was, before breaking down into tears. Then he'd hug me, tell me it wasn't my fault, that the world was just such a violent, brutish little planet and he couldn't stand it.

It was impossible to tell which 'Steven' we'd get from day to day, to the point that it was like dealing with a fucking comic book villain. Steven _always_ had grand ideas and plans. When he was 'up', things were never fucking boring, and he had a way of just sucking everyone into his ideas and getting people involved. He was energetic, and had a personality that made people just want to follow his ideas.

But in the midst of _**following**_ those ideas, Steven would, without warning, suddenly experience a personality shift. One second he would be enthusiastically helping everyone bake chocolate chunk fudge muffins because he had this grand idea about surprising the track team with them the next day, and the next second he'd lock himself in the bathroom and turn on the shower. But in spite of what we all pretended, the water was never loud enough to completely drown out the sound of his crying.

Over time I figured out how to recognize which mood Steven was in very quickly. I adapted, slipping out of the room the moment it became clear that he was depressed again. It wasn't a perfect system, especially once he realized what I was doing and started ranting about what a stupid little bitch I was.

He was a sad, angry man without much outlet considering he was also a fucking coward. People like the god damn PRT shrinks like to ask if my step-father ever hit me, or touched me inappropriately. I laugh in their faces when they ask that shit. Steven wasn't the type. He may have called me an idiot, or snapped at me in other ways, but deep down, he was a coward and a crybaby. He wouldn't dare raise his hand to me, even the stupid, naive child version of me that I tried to forget about most of the time..

So no, Steven never hit me. The worst he did was stuff like make me sit in a chair while going on for several minutes about how incompetent I was, how I was a pathetic retard who was going to fail out of high school because my real dad used to drop acid or something. But mostly it was a lot of crying over how fucked the world was and how bad he felt about everything. In some ways, I preferred the insults.

But it wasn't until that night, that one very specific night that anyone really understood how fucking crazy Steven was.

* * *

 _January 10th, 2006_

"But why are we going to your office?" I shivered a bit in the cold while hurrying to keep up with Steven, who was walking with long, sure strides across the empty parking lot. Not that I had much of a choice about keeping up or not, considering the tight grip that the man had on my hand.

For a moment, Steven said nothing. I glanced up, watching his tear-reddened eyes as we walked. If only I'd noticed that he had been crying when he abruptly tossed my coat to me and declared that the two of us were going somewhere while mom and Terry were busy.

Instead of answering my question, Steven stopped there in the middle of the lot, tilting his head back to gaze at the sky. "You know there was another Endbringer attack a couple days ago?" Before I could answer, he pressed on. "They just keep coming. They just won't stop." There were tears in the man's eyes once again, and he sniffed while poking at the keypad beside the door that led into the back of his office building. "Newfoundland was a year ago, a year and it wasn't enough for them. Half a million people, Leviathan killed them all and it wasn't enough. They're gonna ruin the world, kid. They're gonna kill everybody." Considering I was fucking eleven years old, I had no idea what to say to that.

With his hand tight on mine, the man walked to the elevator, pulling me with. Rather than hitting the button for his office, however, he pushed the top button. When I asked once again what we were doing, he just smiled sadly. "They're gonna kill everyone, kid. Every last person. You want them to kill you? You wanna burn up when Behemoth comes, or drown if it's Leviathan? You wanna go crazy and kill your brother when the Simurgh fucks with your head? Or if it's not them, it'll be the Nine. You want that? You wanna be the next one they string up and cut all your heart out while you watch?

Eyes wide, I shook my head as hard as I could. "N-no. No."

"Of course not." He nodded then, as if my answer had reaffirmed a decision he'd come to. His hand came down on my shoulder and he squeezed it while speaking in a softer voice, a voice tinted with sad resignation. "Of course not."

From the top floor, he led me to the stairs with roof access. Again, a quick pass code typed into the numerical pad unlocked the door and let us walk right up and into the cold winter air once more.

"Steven?" I remember asking again as the man walked with me to the edge of the roof. I didn't know what he was doing, but I didn't want to be there. "Why are we here? Can we go home now, please?"

"Don't be such a whining little idiot!" He abruptly snapped. When I drew back, my eyes wide, he immediately softened and pulled my resisting form to him into something resembling a hug. "Aww shit, no. No, I'm sorry, kid. This wasn't how I wanted it. That was all wrong. You're my favorite, Sophia. You're my favorite, I didn't mean to snap at you." He was crying again. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It's just... this world. It sucks. I can't imagine being you. How awful it must be, knowing they expect you to grow up in this shitty place. All the monsters we have in the world, everything's getting worse and you've got nothing to look forward to, do you?"

"Umm..." I couldn't think, he had me crushed against his chest in such a tight hug. "I... think Tracy's gonna invite me to her birthday next week."

"Oh kid," Steven's voice was quiet. He stood, still holding me against his chest. "Trust me, you'll be better off than Tracy. She has to grow up in this piece of shit world. I love you, kid. You're like a daughter to me. I couldn't..." He sniffed again. "I couldn't do that to you. I couldn't abandon you like my old man abandoned me. Not you. We're buddies, right?"

"Does... does that mean we can go home now?" Eleven-year old me asked with pathetic hopefulness.

That earned more tears against my hair as the man began to sob openly once more. "My Sophia. If only. If only it was that easy, huh? If only this world of ours wasn't so violent and brutish. This is better than home. We don't have to hurt anymore, you and me. No more pain."

He took a step then, and I realized how close we were to the edge of the roof. Twisting my head, I saw that he was actually standing right up on the short lip that ran around the very edge itself, and the ground loomed up at me from more than a dozen stories away.

"St-Steven?" I suddenly thrashed. "No—no! Let me go! Let go of me! Put me down! Steven, put me down! I don't want this, I don't want it! Let go of me! Let go!" Panicking, I twisted and writhed.

Yet Steven didn't let me go. He held me tighter, closing his eyes as he ignored my panicked begging. "It's okay," he said quietly while I screamed and begged for him to let me go. "Everything will be all right, kid. Trust me. No more pain. No more being hurt, or sad. It's all right."

His eyes closed, and he murmured what sounded like a prayer. I wasn't sure what happened next. I passed out for a couple seconds or something, because the next thing I knew, we were in freefall. He had jumped from the roof and brought me with him.

* * *

 _April 11th, 2011_

I didn't die back then, obviously. My powers had emerged while in freefall, transforming me into a nearly weightless, almost entirely intangible form that allowed me to both escape the psychopath's grasp and survive the experience. Steven, on the other hand, died on impact.

He had been a coward, who took the coward's way out. He was an asshole who very nearly killed _**me**_ because he thought I was same kind of coward as him. So no, he didn't abuse me. He did what he did because of some stupid fucking idea of what 'love' was, and because he wanted to save me or some other fucked up garbage. Point was, he was a loser who wouldn't fight back against what life threw at him. He was a piece of shit whose answer to any kind of trouble was to roll over and cry about it until he finally threw himself off a fucking roof while holding onto an eleven-year old girl for company.

So yeah, maybe I have a few anger issues. Maybe I don't get along well with others. Maybe I have a thing about cowards who can't grow up and deal with their fucking issues.

But she wasn't supposed to _actually get hurt,_ god damn it _._

Standing on the edge of a very different roof than one that I'd nearly died from, I stopped staring at the busy street below me and looked up while talking out loud to myself. "Where the fuck did that come from?" I had no idea why that thought had popped into my head, or why I kept thinking about that son of a bitch Steven to begin with. And I _**definitely**_ couldn't figure out why Taylor fucking Hebert wouldn't get out of my head and leave me the hell alone.

The fact was, I hadn't meant for her to get that hurt. It was a fucking joke. She was just a pussy that wouldn't fight back, wouldn't _**do**_ anything to stand up for herself. She was a worm, and she just made it so _easy_ to pick on her that I forgot where the line was. I mean, I did have a line. I wasn't evil or anything, I was just... blowing off steam. Fuck, if I'd actually wanted to hurt her bad, I could have. But I didn't. I was just trying to... she was just supposed to... the fucking bitch was...

Heaving a heavy sigh, I pushed myself up and stared down at the street once more, trying to focus. My attention was drawn quickly to a nearby alley. There was a girl backing rapidly away from four guys who were advancing on her. Her back hit the dumpster, and the girl shrank back a bit.

Would she fight back? I always wondered if the people that I rescued really deserved it, if they actually deserved the effort that I put into saving them. What kind of people were they? Were they cowards, like Steven? Were they going to quit, give up and jump off a building while clutching onto someone else?

That was why I watched, why I always needed to know for sure what kind of person I was dealing with, if it was at all possible. That and I was curious, I wanted to know how many losers were out there, how many pathetic freaks who would roll over and die if no one saved them.

"No, please!" The voice, pleading and desperate, reached me from where I stood. The girl wasn't fighting, she was curled up, hiding herself while openly crying in fear. Pathetic, a victim.

And yet I was in the air without another thought. My body turned intangible and almost weightless, while every aspect of what might be called 'life' in a human being was put on pause. I didn't breathe, my heart didn't beat, my stomach didn't process food, I didn't even need to blink. I was, for all intents and purposes, a living shadow.

While falling, I produced both of my crossbows and aimed at two of the four men. The tranquilizer bolts that the PRT had insisted I use when I was forcibly inducted into their Wards program struck home, dropping both of my targets as thoroughly and quickly as if someone had literally just flipped a switch.

I turned solid and landed in between the two still-standing men while they were spinning around to see what had happened to their companions. Twisting around on one foot, I lashed out with the other to kick the side of the first man's knee. His leg went out from under him. As he fell, I caught the arm that held his gun, stripping it away with a clean twist before letting it fall to the ground.

By that time, the other man had turned toward me. He brought his own gun up, but I used his buddy's kneeling form as a launching point. Planting my foot against his chest, I shoved up and off, turning intangible for a brief second in mid-air. The force of my foot kicking off of him knocked the kneeling man backwards into the wall, while I went up and straight toward the remaining man.

He fired twice, both of which went straight through my shadow-form. Turning solid a moment later, I lashed out with the palm of my hand, planting it straight in the man's face. His nose shattered under the impact, and I dropped to my feet.

Blind with anger, the man flailed at me. I evaded or blocked each strike, or just turned intangible and let him whiff. After letting him have a few pointless shots at me, I caught his arm and twisted it in mid-blow before using it to flip myself up and over. My legs locked around the man's neck, and I yanked down hard, using the weight of my body and the force of my flip to bring him to the ground, where I kept my legs locked tight so that he couldn't breathe.

He was out like a light before long, and I rolled over and up to check on the other guy. He had hit his head, but it didn't look like there was any permanent damage.

"Tha-thank you."

The voice of the would-be victim startled me, and I blinked that way. "What?"

"I said... thank you?" She was some party girl college student. "For saving me."

My mouth opened and then shut behind the mask of a scowling woman that I wore. No complaints? No bitching that I hadn't saved her sooner?

Then again, I had jumped in almost immediately. I'd _meant_ to wait, to just watch and see what the girl did. But the instant she'd cried out, the second that she'd begged them to stop, I had acted. I had stepped in, but why? Why did I suddenly feel the need to _**act**_ instead of watch? Why did I jump in without a plan, without fully assessing the situation? What the hell was wrong with me?

And why did I keep fucking hearing Taylor god damn Hebert's voice whenever someone cried for help?

 **Interlude 1 – Kaiser**

Max Anders was alone in his office, business hours long over. The room was dark behind him as he stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows, gazing out to the lights of the bustling city beyond. His suit jacket lay over the back of the leather chair at his desk, and the sleeves of his blue silk shirt were rolled back to expose his toned and evenly muscled forearms. In one hand he held a glass whose golden amber contents swirled slightly as it was brought to his lips. He lowered his eyes a bit then, gazing at the liquid within the glass in the glow from the city lights for a moment before taking a sip. His eyes closed at the taste while a soft sigh of appreciation escaped him.

The city before him, those lights that shone as beacons through the darkness, was spiraling. He knew that. The crime rate was obscene, driven higher with every passing day as the worst dregs of an already dilapidated society drove their claws deeper into the bones of the decent, hard-working citizens who wanted nothing more than for their families to live their lives in safety and prosperity.

Brockton Bay needed help, real help that the Empire Eighty-Eight could provide. His people, his soldiers, could clean up this city. They could show the rest of the country what might be achieved when the lawless were brought to heel, when the minor races understood that it was not out of malice that they were restrained. After all, was the father who spoke a harsh word and brought his rambunctious child back into line considered a monster? These other races, they wondered why their neighborhoods fell into disrepair, why their youth filled the prisons, and why their lives seemed to be filled with nothing but hate and violence. Yet in the same breaths, they spat on the guidance and security offered by the whites, those who had originally _built_ the golden civilization that they meant to emulate. The son showed his father deference by obeying his rules, and in so doing, learned enough to stand on his own. In time, with the proper obedience and _observation_ of their civilized forebears, perhaps the minority races could also 'grow up' and expand civilization rather than leech off of it. His eventual grandchildren, or great-grandchildren might live to see such an event. But that would take time and effort that most were not willing to invest when it was much easier to simply complain now.

Some called him a monster. They thought he was heartless. Yet who was truly heartless, the one who fought, bled, and struggled to educate and civilize the ungrateful savages, or the one who simply allowed them to run wild, killing one another at a whim? If one father allowed his child to play in the freeway, while another father smacked the hand of his own child for trying to do the same, who would the shrill and judgmental masses consider to be the true monster once tragedy inevitably occurred?

So no, the efforts of his Empire, inherited from his father, would not be appreciated any time soon. Their work would be derided, their characters attacked in all of the press. Their kind, their **beliefs** had been so ingrained within the national consciousness as 'evil' that few would bother looking further. Even many of those who, given a moment of actual consideration and thought would find that they actually agreed with the complaints and goals of those that they scorned, would simply see 'Nazi' and have their minds made up for them before they knew anything else. The term itself was enough.

That particular thought amused Max to no end, drawing a faint chuckle. His people were being judged unfairly based on a preconceived notion of guilt stemming from personal beliefs. Perhaps he should file complaint with the ACLU? It might have been worth it, just to see the reactions it would evoke.

"Something funny over there?"

The voice was unexpected, and only a lifetime spent controlling his reactions prevented Max from flinching. That, of course, was what the man standing in his doorway was hoping for. He wanted to see Max react, to know that he had gotten to the man in charge and made him blink.

Instead, Max raised the glass once again to take another sip. It was a simple, reflexive action that masked the time he needed to collect himself so that his voice would sound as calm as he needed it to. At the same time, it gave the impression that he was in no rush, and that his guest's interruption would not alter his own plans. People operated by the schedule of Max Anders, not the other way around.

He also made a mental note to have glow panels installed in the entrance-way that would be connected to motion sensors. That way, the next time someone came close enough to his office door, the panels lighting up would give Max forewarning.

No, better to have the motion sensors attached to some subtle notification within the room itself. A light near his desk, perhaps? Or a small fan that could provide a gust of air so that his future guests could not associate the light turning on with their arrivals. Best that they believe he simply knew these things.

It was worth looking into, and he would have Erica look into a few possibilities in the morning.

Finally, he spoke without turning. "I'm fortunate enough to find many things amusing, Brad. Few of which I could share outside of select company." After letting that hang in the air just long enough for the man who called himself Hookwolf to wonder just _how_ selective that list was, he turned and smiled while continuing. "In this case, I was considering what sort of reaction the people who claim that every lifestyle and birth has merit and value would have if we were to take them at their word."

It was a calculated action, as was everything that Max did. By stating that he could share his amusements with a few and then deliberately doing that very thing with Brad, he was allowing the man to see himself as part of that inner circle. It worked to reinforce his loyalty, and required nothing more than a brief moment of time and a few words. Maximum return for minimal effort.

Brad, his large form filling the doorway, chuckled darkly. He set one fist into his opposite palm and cracked his knuckles. "Don't really think the bleeding hearts would care much for that."

"No, I doubt they would," Max agreed before speaking clearly. "Lights, thirty-five percent." At his command, the office was lit by a glow just bright enough to see through without forcing a moment of blindness by the sudden switch from dark to fully lit. It gave his darkness-attuned eyes time to adjust.

"You're back early," he observed while stepping around from his desk. Using two fingers as he passed the back of his chair, he tugged his suit jacket up and slipped it on though a carefully orchestrated exchange of the glass from hand to hand. Shrugging his shoulders into place to straighten the jacket finally, he added in as calm a voice as he could manage, "Was there a problem?"

Brad shook his head, the long ponytail that his dirty-blonde hair was pulled into waving with the motion. "Hell no. Matter of fact, we had a little bit of help from Lung and the Protectorate."

Eyes going up at those words, Max saw amusement in the big man's gaze. "Explain." It was not a question or a request, it was a statement of fact. He wanted answers, and Hookwolf would provide.

"Lung was getting all riled up down by the docks," Brad waved a hand dismissively. "Seems like he was trying to hit one of those new upstart groups, the Insiders or some shit?"

"Undersiders," Max corrected. "They hit the casino not that long ago. I have Erica working on a dossier to give to the troops since they seem to be trying to expand into the big leagues. Best to be prepared."

Nodding in agreement with that, Brad went on. "Anyway, Lung's pissed off at them for some reason so he was trying to throw down. Got his people all set up and everything. Only the Undersiders hit his secondary squad with Oni Lee before they could all meet up. Took out some of his men and delayed Lee long enough for the Protectorate to get wind of Lung and the rest of his boys. Big nasty brawl happened with the white hats trying to keep old Chinky Chong away from civilized folk." He was grinning by the end. "I tell you, I was pretty tempted to stick around and ask if they wanted a hand."

"Perhaps at some point, we can thank them properly for their assistance." Max mused idly before focusing. "So the Protectorate was busy with Lung and his men, and you took advantage of the distraction to do the job." When the blonde man nodded, Max rewarded him with a smile. "Good."

Stepping back out of the doorway as his boss approached, Brad grunted. "Yeah, so we're all set up downstairs. I've got Rune and Othala with 'em. Figured that was best."

"Also good," Max nodded in satisfaction. For all his thuggish appearance, there was a strategic mind inside the head of Brad Meadows. He was far from a genius, to be sure, but he **was** tactically gifted, and could be trusted to think these things through given a little bit of guidance and reinforcement.

Together, the two men strode out of the office and toward the elevator. Max finished the last bit of his drink and set the glass on Erica's desk on the way out. She would take care of it in the morning. His mind was on other things. "Our guest is comfortable then? There were no... injuries?"

"Nah, in and out, just like you asked." Brad stepped onto the elevator and chuckled under his breath. "I think Stormtiger was disappointed. He was hoping for a little excitement, not this easy street shit."

It was a complaint, though a minor one, even if Hookwolf was using his companion's disappointment to voice it. Max knew that Brad and his people were fighters. They wanted open brawls where they could get bloody and prove their superiority, rather than the subtle actions he had requested. Still, the prize was well worth a small bit of annoyance on their parts, particularly if it paid off.

On the other hand, it wouldn't do to let them get antsy. "Don't you worry, my friend," he replied with an easy smile that invited trust and camaraderie. "Before long, there will be all the excitement you want."

The elevator doors closed, and Max pressed his thumb against the provided pad while keeping his head level. A second scan passed over his eye while he spoke the words clearly so that the vocal print could be identified as well. "Sub-basement two, passcode to follow. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. End passcode."

The elevator began to descend after chiming acknowledgment, and Brad shook his head. "I still don't get why you've got some Winston Churchill quote for your passcode. You know he was the enemy?"

"He also won," Max replied pointedly without explaining further. Instead, he asked, "Are your people up for another excursion then, since this one was so successful?"

Showing his teeth in a smile at that, Hookwolf nodded. "Absolutely. You got some place in mind?"

"If Lung and Oni Lee are busy, their new tinker may be vulnerable. Particularly if they've tied up their forces with this failed assault." Max turned his head slightly to look at the larger man. "Take Stormtiger, Crusader, and Alabaster. Use Justin's ghosts to scout the place out. If you see an opening, take it. From all I'm hearing, this tinker's primary focus is bombs. That's a... distraction we don't need."

The smile on Brad's face grew wider. "Now that's what I'm talking about. Hit 'em hard or keep it quiet?" The latter question was obviously hard for the man who clearly wanted a brawl, but he knew better than to make assumptions.

"Keep it just quiet enough to hit the tinker before she has time for any surprises," Max instructed. "Once she's out of play or beyond your reach, do as much damage as you can on your way out. You know how to play it best, Brad. I trust your judgment. The tinker is the primary target. Collateral damage on the ABB's side is secondary, though still greatly appreciated." He afforded the man another brief smile. "Let's take advantage of the opportunity that Lung's blunder has given us."

By that point, the elevator had reached its destination, three floors below ground level, in an area that was so far off-limits to the vast majority of Medhall Corporation employees that they had no idea it even existed. As far as the nine-to-five workers were concerned, the regular basement was as far as the elevators went. The two additional levels didn't even show up on the registered blueprints.

As the doors opened, Max stepped off while looking toward the other man, who remained on the elevator. "If they're up for it, take Fenja and Menja. The two of them could use a little excitement. But keep them down to normal size until after you either deal with the tinker or confirm she's out of reach."

"Got it," Brad used his fist to hit the button for the ground floor. Before the doors closed, he showed that fist to his leader. "Let you know how it goes."

"Do that," Max agreed. Pivoting on his heel then, the man started down the hallway. He passed unmarked doors on either side, never slowing or breaking stride. Through what would have been a complicated maze of corridors in this subbasement, he navigated flawlessly.

Finally, he came to a door in a small side-hall. A teenage blonde girl slouched sideways in a comfortable arm chair beside the door, thoroughly engrossed in the book that floated in front of her face, while the girl's own hands were buried in the red and black robe that she wore.

Checking the title of the book, Max spoke up. "Emily Dickinson? I could have sworn you already had her material thoroughly memorized, Cassie."

Letting the book drop back into her lap, Rune jumped in her seat and cursed. "God fucking douche-jockeys, don't _**do that!**_ " Looking up even as she blurted the words reflexively, the girl at least had the presence of mind to flinch when she saw who was there. "Err, sorry. I mean..." She picked up the book and shrugged, clearly self-conscious. "Sure, I know it all. I just like to re-read her shit sometimes. It helps me think."

"It's always good to think," he agreed before nodding to the door. "Is Vanessa keeping our guest calm?"

"Yeah," Cassie gave a vague wave of her hand before settling back with the book. "Figured she was better at that sort thing than me."

Smiling faintly, Max gave the girl a pat on the shoulder before stepping past her. "We all have our strengths." At her noncommittal grunt, he twisted the knob and stepped inside the room.

Othala glanced up when he entered and smiled at the only other occupant in what looked for all intents and purposes like an ordinary motel room. There was a bed, a television, a desk and computer, even an attached bathroom and a mini fridge full of snacks and drinks. He wanted his guest to be comfortable.

"And how are we doing so far?" He asked.

"I wanna go home," the person on the bed answered. "What do you want from me?"

Crossing the room, Max tugged a chair away from the desk and sat down to be on the same level as the new arrival. "What do I want?" He repeated her question before smiling. "I want to change the world.

"And from what I hear, I think you're just the one to help me do that, Dinah."


	2. Arc 2: Running Into Trouble

_**Notes –** Imageination: Yes, Emma's power is a bud from Sophia's. Taylor is not actually a master though, she's a thinker. More on that in this update. ;) _

_Luan Mao: You'll see a lot more of how this power works in this update._

 _HellKing666: Wow, thanks for the extensive thoughts. I'm glad you like the first part of this new story. I will say that it is **definitely** not a grimdark version of the other one. I don't do grimdark. You'll see how there are chances for certain people as we go along. _

_That all said, enjoy the new update, guys. I'll shut up now so you can read the actual story._

 **2-01 – Emma**

Thanks to my dad, I've ridden plenty of horses in my life. Being on the back of this wild animal as it tore down the street like a bat out of hell was about as far from _that_ as it was from riding on a plane. It was _closer_ to riding an elephant, which I'd also done thanks to my dad, but that had been at a calm and sedate pace. This was a mad dash down the street, veering back and forth and nearly bowling over people who were unfortunate enough to be in our path. The guy with the crown kept shouting for them to get out of the way, while I mostly just shouted in terror and tried not to fall off.

I would have failed at even that much if the guy in the motorcycle helmet hadn't caught my hands in his during one of the flat stretches. Over the sound of horns honking their disapproval, he directed my fingers down to what I belatedly realized were a series of straps that had been secured to the animal. Gratefully, I grabbed onto the straps and held on for dear life.

It was a good thing that I managed to catch hold of the strap when I did, because the next thing I knew, we were airborne. The guy in the crown had just shouted yet another warning, but apparently the person involved was too slow because the lizard-panther thing leapt all the way up and over them.

Fearing the worst, I glanced back and was relieved to catch the slightest glimpse of whoever we had nearly hit. I couldn't make out much before the animal tore around the corner, but the shape that had been on the ground was moving. Clearly they were all right. Now I just had to make sure _**I**_ was.

Much to my chagrin, I ended up remembering that my power could get me safely off this animal without any problem at all about two seconds before we came to a stop anyway.

"All good back there?" The guy in black motorcycle gear asked.

"Yeah, you didn't fall off or anything, right?" The second guy added. "Scraping the remains of newbies that don't know how to hold onto the straps off the ground is always a pain in the ass."

"Not helping, Regent." The guy in black muttered before turning his head slightly. "First, don't listen to him, we haven't had any other new members at all, let alone any that fell off. Second, you're gonna have to get down first. We're kinda packed in here and I'd rather not kick you in the face."

Realizing just how close I had been at that point made me lean back reflexively. Turning, I blinked at the sight of another person standing beside the animal. The alley that we had turned down wasn't terribly well lit, but I was able to make out what looked like a plastic dog mask covering their face. Before I could say anything, they spoke with a girl's voice. "Get the fuck off my dog."

My response to that was to blink at her in surprise. "This thing is a dog?"

Okay, yeah, probably not the _best_ choice of words. So I probably shouldn't have been that surprised when the girl in the dog mask abruptly gave a sharp whistle. On cue, the animal we were on jerked upward onto its hind legs. Since I wasn't holding onto the strap, I went flying with a loud yelp. I would have landed hard on the damp ground if I hadn't instinctively leapt into the safety of my power.

Stopping myself in the air as the familiar red glow fell over everything, I righted myself and stared for a second at the massive animal that the other girl had called a dog. There wasn't that much 'dog-like' about it, even while it was frozen like this. Still, arguing the point seemed like a pretty stupid idea.

My attention turned to the two boys who had helped me get away from Oni Lee: Regent and whatever the guy in motorcycle gear was called. Both of them had obviously been taken by surprise as well, and were tumbling off the animal. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot that I could do about that. I'd get crushed if I tried to catch them (except for the Regent guy possibly, he looked fairly thin), and I couldn't actually move anything while my power was active that hadn't been on me when I activated it. Not that there was an awful lot of options for a soft landing sitting here in the dirty alley to begin with.

I'd been caught mid-yelp and hadn't had a lot of time to suck in air before hitting the pause button, so if I was going to do something, it needed to be quick. To that end, I rushed for the end of the alley where I could see a pile of cardboard boxes that had been broken down and tossed out next to the nearby dumpster. Dropping next to the pile, I psyched myself up for a quick in-and-out. As quickly as I could, I dropped my power and let time resume, grabbed onto as many of the boxes as I could get my arms around, and refroze time while taking a deeper breath this time.

I didn't manage to bring all of the broken down boxes into the freeze with me, but I did manage enough. Hauling up as much of the pile as I could, I dragged them backwards along the ground to where the two boys were. They had fallen closer to the ground in that time, and I knew that one more unfreeze would be too much. So I had to hope that this was enough. On the plus side, it was easy to guess where the two boys were going to hit, since they were so close to the ground.

Carefully, I spread out the cardboard as much as I could, piling it enough to provide at least some small cushion. Once that was done, I let go of my power so that time could resume normal speed.

"-ing hell!" Regent had obviously been caught mid-curse as he landed on his portion of the pile of cardboard. The other guy landed beside him, and both looked at each other before staring down at what they had fallen on, clearly surprised by their at least semi-soft landing. Softer than concrete anyway.

The black motorcycle helmet turned to see me crouched behind them, my hands still on the cardboard. "Wait," he spoke with obvious surprise. "Did you just..."

"Sorry," I straightened and shrugged, feeling self-conscious. "You got me away from Oni Lee, so I didn't think I should really let you hit the ground like that. Sorry I couldn't reach anything softer."

"Did you really just apologize twice for helping us _not_ break our delicate hineys on the ground?" Regent asked. He was already picking himself up, giving me a better look at his costume. In short, he looked like a refugee from one of those renaissance faires that Taylor had always wanted to go to (Our fathers had forbidden it, saying we weren't old enough. And by the time we _were,_ well... yeah). His shirt was ruffled, the white color matching his mask, and he also wore skintight leggings that were tucked into his knee-high boots. The outfit he wore, coupled with his not-exactly-masculine physique meant that the old Emma probably would have used a pretty horrible name to describe him.

Instead, I just blinked at him. "Did _you_ really just say hineys?"

He shrugged while stretching languidly, clearly utterly unconcerned. "I don't know about you, but I consider mine a pretty winning feature. I'd hate for something to get it all bruised."

"Speaking of bruising something," the guy in the motorcycle gear had picked himself up by then, and turned toward the girl whose whistle had started this whole thing. "What the hell, Bitch?"

"Err, are you really sure you should call her names?" I ventured a little hesitantly.

"That is her name," the guy replied without looking back at me. "Or the one she prefers anyway. Public calls her Hellhound to keep things rated PG." He pointed at the girl then. "You know better than to do that shit. You knew we were bringing someone new back with us."

Clearly not bothered by his tone, the girl he called Bitch spoke with a stubborn tone. "I don't like her."

"You don't even know her." From the boy's voice, he was clearly gritting his teeth. "We've been over this, Bitch, we needed the help. We voted, you lost. You're going to have to deal with that."

Okay, I was officially confused. This was starting to sound an awful lot like a long-running argument, which baffled me. How could they have had a history of arguing about me before we even met?

Finally sighing when it was clear that he wasn't going to get anywhere, the guy in black turned to me and extended his hand. "Sorry, on her behalf. Bitch doesn't really know how to get along with others. I'm Grue, and that's Regent. If you want to call him Hiney though, I think we'd all understand."

"Sure would," Regent himself drawled lazily and without a single solitary hint of self-consciousness as he leaned against the nearby wall. "Like I said, winning feature."

Hesitantly shaking Grue's hand while feeling more than a bit lost, I finally found my voice a moment later. "Ummm, uhhh, listen. So, back there when we were running away, he," I gestured toward Regent, "said something about bad guys? In the us being of sort of saying." That particular convoluted phrasing left me feeling about as confused as I was fairly sure the others were, and I sighed. "What I meant to say is that he said you were bad guys. I mean, we were bad guys."

That dark motorcycle helmet tilted with obvious uncertainty. "Yes?" Grue sounded just as uncertain as I was. "Didn't the boss fill you in before he sent you to help us out of that jam?"

I blinked blankly at that. "Didn't the who do what now?"

"She has no idea what you're talking about, Grue." That was a new voice, and I turned to see a figure approaching from down the open end of the alley. She wore a dark colored costume that I picked out as being purple and black once she got closer. Her dark blonde hair was long and fell past her shoulders, and a black domino mask was affixed to her face. She was smiling, but it wasn't so much the 'everyone's happy' sort of smile as it was the 'I know a secret' kind.

"Excuse me?" Grue stared at the newcomer for a moment. "Okay Tattletale, what the hell is that supposed to mean? **You** said that the boss was sending a new cape as reinforcements. We had a whole argument about it, remember? You might recall Bitch's complaining?"

"Sure," the blonde, Tattletale apparently, nodded. "And he did. But that," she gestured toward me. "was not her. She **is** a new cape, just not the one you were supposed to be waiting for. Besides, our reinforcement's a tinker, not a teleporter." She gave me a brief look then that I couldn't decipher.

"But she fought Oni Lee," Grue protested. "We thought she was... I mean it looked like... aww fuck." He looked back at me. "You really aren't the reinforcement that our boss was supposed to send?" When I shook my head rapidly, he went on. "And you were fighting Oni Lee. You're a hero, aren't you?"

"Umm..." I took a step back reflexively, hesitating before offering a little weakly, "I'm trying to be? If it helps, I don't think I'm very good at it yet. I wasn't _trying_ to fight Oni Lee. It just sort of happened."

He continued to stare at me for another few seconds while I grew increasingly uncomfortable. I was about to use my power to scram when he finally spoke. "Still, you helped us out. So thanks for that."

Blinking, I asked slowly, "You're not gonna try to fight me or anything?"

"Wasn't planning on it," Grue replied easily. "Unless you really want to?" Belatedly, I realized that he was teasing me. "We could go a couple rounds if you weren't worn out enough by Lee and his goons."

"No, no, that's okay." I held up both hands placatingly. "I'm good. But you guys don't mind me being a hero?" I looked from Grue to Tattletale, then to Regent, and finally to Bitch. Other than the latter, who was glaring at me so hard I thought I might spontaneously combust, none of them looked concerned.

Linking his arms behind his head, Regent spoke nonchalantly. "You did say you were pretty bad at it. We could use some more 'pretty bad' heroes. Maybe you'll drag down their average."

"Wait," Grue said abruptly as he turned toward the blonde girl. "Where _**is**_ the girl that was supposed to be our reinforcement then, if this one isn't her?"

"Good question," Tattletale admitted before taking a small cell phone from her belt. She flipped it open and hit a button. After waiting a moment for it to be answered, she started, "Hey boss, we—what?" For several long seconds, she just made noises of understanding before finally signing off.

"What's wrong?" Grue had folded his arms across his chest, and I had the distinct impression that he was frowning. Even Regent looked vaguely interested by that point. Bitch was still glaring at me.

"The tinker," Tattletale was wincing. "She's in trouble. After you guys ran off, she tried to extract but she went the other way and ended up right in the middle of some kind of Empire Eighty-Eight incursion into ABB territory. Now she's trapped between a bunch of the Empire capes and ABB thugs."

"Shit," Grue cursed. "That's our fault." He didn't look at me, but I knew what he meant, what they had to be thinking. They'd only accidentally abandoned their new teammate because they thought I was her. "What about Lung?" He added after a brief hesitation.

The blonde girl's head shook. "Lung and a big part of the ABB soldiers are fighting the Protectorate now. But the ones that are fighting off the Empire are holed up and fighting from fortification. They're also shooting at everything that moves, so our girl can't move out of her current position."

Heaving a sigh, Grue nodded. "All right, then we go back for her. It's our fault she's stranded back there anyway. We go in, grab her, and get out again as fast as we can. We are not a part of this battle."

They started to move in, and I stood there awkwardly for several long seconds. I felt so guilty all of a sudden. Sure, whoever this new member of theirs had been, she was a criminal. She was a villain, a cape using her powers for selfish reasons. But that didn't really mean that she needed to die, and being caught in the middle of a gang war between the Empire and the ABB wasn't likely to end any other way. Especially not if she was in costume and likely to be mistaken as a member of the other side by whoever happened to spot her. This was bad, and it was at least partly my fault.

"I'll go with you," I finally blurted before I could talk myself out of it. When Grue turned to look at me, I hurried on. "I mean, just for this rescue mission. It's my fault you guys left her behind, even if I didn't mean for it to happen. So umm, if you don't mind, I'll help you get her out of there."

"A hero helping a bunch of villains?" Regent had adopted a posh tone. "Why, I never."

The girl in the dog mask had already pushed off the wall and was stalking toward me. "Fuck you, you're just trying to get us-"

Grue caught her by the shoulder to stop her forward motion, pulling the girl back. "Back off, Bitch." He focused on me then. "You sure you can do that? Put the whole 'try to bring us to justice' thing on pause for now?"

My head bobbed once. "You didn't attack me when you found out I wasn't one of you. And I owe you for getting me out of there. Plus, like I said, her being trapped is kind of my fault. So yeah, it's put on pause."

"Good enough," he nodded. "In that case, thanks for the help. Now let's go get our new tinker out of trouble."

So, to summarize, I had accidentally intervened in the middle of one fight between two villain teams and been mistaken for a villain in the process. And now I was purposefully helping this villain team save their trapped villain teammate from the middle of **another** fight between two different villain teams.

Yeah, I was pretty much the worst superhero ever.

 **2-02 – Taylor**

I was in Faultline's head. Or rather, I was seeing things from her point of view. At the moment, that meant that I was seeing myself. Somehow, my body looked even paler and more drawn through another person's eyes than when I was seeing it through my all-encompassing vision. The sight of myself sitting there in the corner of the room, eyes gazing vacantly at nothing was enough to make me wish that I really could take control of this body just so I could close her eyes and stop looking.

Instead, I was trapped here, not yet able to understand my powers enough to control when and where my attention jumped. Which kind of terrified me right then, because if my focus jumped out to some passing person or animal, I would miss what the woman was saying. And I really wanted to hear her.

At the moment, she had gone silent, leaning back to study me for a few seconds. I had no idea what she was _thinking_ , but she was _feeling_ calm and determined. She had stated her intentions of helping me, and had no real doubts about her ability to do so. It was kind of nice, actually. If I let them, her feelings of certainty and self-assurance helped ease my own doubt and fear over what was happening to me.

"I imagine," Faultline's voice spoke then, startling me. "That if you know who I am, you're probably wondering why I'm here, why I agreed to this. After all, the salary of a nurse is hardly going to pay for the time of a single cape mercenary, let alone my team. And you'd be right. We're professionals, and we're very good at what we do. Charity cases are not exactly in our wheelhouse."

I bristled at that, feeling defensive. I was not a charity case. I didn't need her, if she was going to-

"But you're not a charity case."

Oh. I settled slightly, but still wasn't entirely comfortable. She was right, I _was_ wondering why a cape mercenary was paying me a personal visit, apparently on the word of a single nurse that was just _guessing_ about my being a parahuman. He could just as easily be wrong. So why was she here?

"There are two reasons that I'm here, Taylor," Faultline continued in that calm, self-assured tone. "The first reason is the young woman in the corridor right now. She and I only met recently, but I promised her, just like I promised you just now, that I would help her in any way that I could. She's a member of our team, and we take care of each other. She and your nurse are very good friends, and when he mentioned his thoughts on your condition, she promised that she would see if I could help you."

Through the woman's own eyes, I saw her hand come up to gently brush away a bit of my long hair that had drifted down over my eyes before she continued. "The second reason I'm here is because I believe that we can help each other. You see, I have another friend whose ability is so powerful, so amazing that it overwhelms her. It hurts her without meaning to. The doctors thought that the best thing they could do was lock her up. They thought she was broken, but she's not, and neither are you. You're a parahuman, Taylor. Whatever power this is, whatever has you in its grip, it is **your** power. Yours. That's why I'm going to help you. That's why you and I are going to help each other. Because you are not helpless, Taylor. You are so powerful that your mind can't comprehend it. That's why you have to understand that this is not charity. This is an investment. Because I believe in you."

My mind drifted a bit as I tried to cope with that. This wasn't a charity case. She didn't feel sorry for me, or at least that wasn't her driving motivation. She thought I was powerful. She thought I could help her, that we could help each other. She wasn't trying to baby me, but she did obviously care somewhat. It was like she... trusted me, believed in me... _**and**_ cared about what I wanted, what I felt.

Slipping out of her eyes, I found myself returning to my wide-view vision and saw both myself and the woman in question. She slipped the glove off of one of her hands to touch mine, and I felt both the clamminess of my skin, and the warmth of hers. "You and I, we're going to play a game, Taylor. We're going to communicate. From now on, if you want to say 'yes', you raise your right arm here." She moved then to touch my other hand. "And if you want to say no, you raise your left arm. Right for yes, left for no. I want you to raise your yes hand if you understand that." Her hand came up to cup my cheek briefly. "And you don't need to feel frustrated or panic when it takes you awhile. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to sit right there," she pointed to a chair nearby. "And wait for as long as it takes. You focus on what you need to do to get that arm up." Sliding her metal mask back into place, the woman rose and moved to sit in the chair.

From the doorway, Teddy the nurse spoke hesitantly. "It'd be easier if you let her raise just a finger."

"I'm sure it would," Faultline nodded. "But Taylor doesn't need easy. She can do this just fine." Pointing at him then, she added, "Now you and Emily go find something to eat. I will let her know when Taylor and I are finished, but right now, the two of us need privacy."

For the next fifteen minutes, I struggled to force my hand to raise. In spite of the woman's words, I _did_ get frustrated. This was awful. How could I be a powerful parahuman? How could she even think that? It took me a quarter of an hour to lift my hand. And it wasn't like my arm would lift very slowly either. Rather, it took that long before the command to lift my arm made any impression at all. Once it did, my arm lifted just like normal. The problem was the delay between thought and action, and the toll that it took. Just forcing my arm to lift seemed to tire me out the way jogging for fifteen minutes should have.

Finally, however, my right arm rose into the air. It hovered there, as a sense of accomplishment completely out of proportion for the fact that all I'd done is raise my hand filled me.

"Good." Faultline nodded while taking a knee next to me. Her hand held mine briefly. "That's very good, Taylor. But we have to make sure that what you're doing isn't just an automatic response. So I'm going to ask you a few questions. If you answer them all right, we'll assume you _are_ in there and you are coherent. Then we'll go from there." Gently, she pushed my arm back down. "So, first question for you to answer. Rain, dogs, and the planet Neptune are all the same thing, yes or no?"

Once the question was asked, she gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. "Again, I'm right here. I'm sitting down right over there, and I'm not going anywhere until I get an answer. So you tell me, are rain, dogs, and the planet Neptune all the same thing?" After reiterating the question, she returned to her seat.

This time it took me a bit longer. Almost seventeen minutes had passed by the time my left arm finally obeyed, lifting into the air. Through it all, Faultline simply sat and busied herself with something on her phone, occasionally glancing up to check on me before looking down again.

She nodded once my arm was up. Again, the woman slipped away from her chair and came down to the floor in front of me. "Excellent," she praised me, taking my hand and squeezing it briefly before setting it down against my side. "That's very good, Taylor. See, you're more aware than people think. You can do this. Next question then. A tennis ball, a basketball, this building, and the city of Detroit are all the exact same size, yes or no?" After giving me a reassuring pat, she rose and returned to her chair.

Over the forty minutes, we went through two more questions beyond that one before Faultline was finally fully convinced that my arm movements weren't random and that I really was answering. It was hard, both forcing my arms to move, and stopping my attention from drifting. A couple of times I found my point of view shifting to follow a passing orderly, or a patient being wheeled through the floor below mine. But each time, through sheer force of will, I forced my mind back into my own head and focused on lifting the appropriate arm.

It was exhausting work, and more than a few times I felt like quitting out of frustration. Why? Why was it so hard for me to do simple things like lift my arm? How could I possibly be the kind of powerful parahuman that this woman thought I was when I was all but incapable of the simplest actions?

Yet every time I started to think about giving up, I thought about Emma, Sophia, and Madison. The three bitches who had done this to me, who had ruined my life. They had spent so long making me completely miserable. They had tortured, humiliated, and destroyed me. Now they were probably laughing to themselves. They thought they'd won, that I was such a pathetic, incompetent loser that I was completely broken. They thought there wouldn't be any consequences, that the world would just keep catering to their every whim while I lay in this stupid fucking hospital room.

No, I wouldn't give up. I wouldn't let them win. Not this time. Even if it killed me, I was going to force my body to move. No matter how hard or exhausting it was, I was going to learn to control this power. I was going to get back to myself, and once I did, none of those bitches was going to hurt me again.

Faultline was squeezing my hand. "Good, perfect. Now that we know you're aware in there, I have one more question. Whatever's going on with you, it's a power of some kind, isn't it? You might not understand how to use it, or why it's limiting you like this, but you have a power. Something special."

According to the clock on the wall, it was only eight minutes after that question that my right hand lifted into the air. When it did, Faultline's hand returned to squeeze mine. "Good. Good girl. Okay, we'll work out a better communication system. We'll find a way to let you talk to us so that you can explain what you're seeing, what you're feeling, everything that's happening to you. Don't worry, Taylor, we will figure this out. But right now, I think you-"

Whatever she had been about to say was interrupted by the sound of a cacophonous bellow, a _**roar**_ from outside the hospital that rattled the windows and made one of the nurses who happened to be walking down the nearby hallway that was within my line of sight yelp and drop the coffee she'd been carrying.

The roar was followed almost immediately by the staccato sound of gunfire, sharp and loud against the previous stillness of the night. Multiple bursts from several different guns overlapped one another, adding to the noise. All of it was coming from outside the hospital, but a few of the gunshots were closer. Those, I was pretty sure, were either inside or right at the entrance.

Faultline had stood the instant that the noise started, moving to the window. I focused on her, willing my attention to jump to her eyes, and was rewarded by an almost immediate success. My vision abruptly went from my wide-angle view of the room and surrounding area, to seeing exactly what Faultline could as she approached the window carefully. She kept her body away from the opening itself, using the wall as cover before peeking around to take a quick look.

A beast stood in the lot near the entrance to the hospital, arms raised above his head while fire swirled around him. The figure was clearly at least fifteen feet tall, a monstrous visage with scale-like armor that lined his skin and burgeoning demonic wings rising from the middle of his back. He was accompanied by at least a couple dozen men in what I recognized as ABB colors.

"Lung," Faultline spoke the name under her breath. "It's him and his little gang." She turned to look at me, and I saw myself sitting there, helpless and unmoving. "I wonder what he's doing here..."

"In the middle of a battle with the Protectorate," a new voice answered, and Faultline's eyes moved from me to the doorway where an obese, bald man stood. His skin was pale to the point of translucence, and I could see the dark outline of his skull beneath his face, as well as the bones of his hand when he raised it to point over his shoulder. "Lung himself seems to be more than willing to engage the Protectorate forces in the street, but some of his men have already withdrawn into the hospital, complicating the Protectorate's ability to respond." Finally, he nodded to me politely. "Good evening, Ms. Hebert. I apologize for the interruption, and for the fact that we could not meet under more pleasant circumstances. My name is Gregor."

"Thank you, Gregor." Faultline started to move away from the window, and my vision shifted back from her point of view to the wide angle of the room. "We're not going to fight Lung. We'll head out the back, but we can't leave Taylor here. Not with Lung and his animals so close. So we'll take her with us, for now." She looked to me. "Don't worry, Taylor, we won't let anything happen to you. You're safe."

Yet it wasn't myself that I was thinking about just then. It was the rest of the people in this hospital. Even as the girl in the gasmask, Emily apparently, and Teddy returned to find out what was going on, my mind was reeling. Danger. The people in this hospital were in danger. The ABB could hurt them, could take hostages, could even kill them in the crossfire with the authorities. Even if Lung stayed outside, his thugs could do a lot of damage in the building all by themselves.

Before I realized it, my left hand was in the air. It had only been one minute since I started thinking about the people that were about to be left to fend for themselves, and yet my arm was in the air.

Gregor noticed first and nudged Faultline while she was in the middle of instructing Teddy to bring a wheelchair. She turned at the nudge and looked toward me, pausing at the sight of my arm. The woman was silent for a moment, thinking before she spoke. "No? You're objecting to something? You're responding to what I said about leaving. You don't want to leave? No, that's not it." Her head tilted as she considered me. "You're worried about the patients here, that the ABB might hurt them."

Emily started to say something, but Faultline shushed her without taking her eyes off of me. A few seconds later she repeated her order to the nurse, telling him to get a wheelchair. Still, she kept watching me for a reaction. Through the mask, I could see her calculating eyes taking in everything.

Again, barely a minute after the question was asked, my right hand lifted into the air. As desperate as I had been to communicate before, it was the thought of abandoning the rest of the innocents here in the hospital, of leaving the sick and injured to face the ABB that had been enough to drop the response time of my actions from an average of ten minutes down to barely one.

By that time, Teddy had returned with the wheelchair. Faultline took it from him and pushed it into the room. "Gregor, help me get Taylor into the seat." She nodded when my hand went up. "Good, see, you can communicate. So you don't want us to leave these people in danger."

She paused while Gregor reached down and lifted my pale, sick-looking form to place in the wheelchair, waiting until my body was settled before speaking again. "We're not heroes, Taylor. We do the jobs that we're paid for, and nobody paid us to risk our lives here."

Before I could despair at that, she continued. "But we do favors for each other. We help our friends. So if we do this, if we help these people and protect them from Lung's people, it's not a job. It's a favor for a friend, for a... teammate. Do you understand that? If we do this, it means we're doing a favor for you as a team member. Is that all right with you?"

New teammate. I knew what she was saying, it was the same thing she'd been saying earlier, only more pointed now. She was telling me that I was a part of their team now, if they did this. Whatever happened from here on, whatever power I had and however long it took for me to fully understand it, I was with them. No matter what happened from here on, I would be agreeing to join their team.

This time, it was barely _under_ a minute before my right hand went up.

"Good girl," Faultline seemed to be smiling behind the mask before she turned to Gregor and Emily. "Call Newter. Tell him to bring the van around with Elle.

"Our new teammate would like us to beat up some thugs."

 **2-03 – Emma**

"She is not riding one of my dogs." The dog-masked girl, Bitch, stated unequivocally. And as if that wasn't clear enough, she added an even more succinct, "Fuck off."

"Damn it, Bitch," Grue was clearly frustrated. "Would you _**rather**_ run headfirst into the middle of a fight between the Empire and the ABB without as much help as we can get?"

Instead of answering that, the girl just raised both shoulders in a shrug. "I don't like her. I don't want her on my dogs, so she's not riding them. I don't fucking care what she does besides that." From the look she sent me then, I didn't think that was _particularly_ true. Even through the plastic mask, it was fairly obvious that Bitch had an idea about a few anatomically impossible things I should do with myself.

Grue started to argue again, but I shook my head. "Forget it, just go. There isn't time for this if you're going to get to your... uh, teammate. I'll catch up my own way."

The other girl, Tattletale, spoke up. "You think you can teleport fast enough to keep up?" There was a certain tone to her voice that made me think there was something else behind her question. For a moment, I wondered what her power was. What kind of a name was Tattletale? It almost sounded like she could tell when people were lying, or force them to tell the truth. Was that it?

Shaking off my confusion, I forced a chipper tone, or at least as much of one as I could manage under the circumstances. "Just tell me where we're going and I might just beat you there."

Bitch's response to that was to give two sharp, short whistles followed by a longer one. Immediately, I heard the galumphing sound of enormous approaching animals.

The sound made me blanch. Right, dogs, plural. So there were **more** of these things? How many were there, and why did she keep calling them dogs when they didn't look anything like them? Did that mean they actually _were_ dogs that she... I don't know, used some kind of bio-tinker formula to transform like a Jekyll and Hyde situation? Sure, the girl didn't _look_ like any kind of tinker with her plaid skirt, ratty old sleeveless tee-shirt, and army boots. But then again, having an atrocious fashion sense wasn't proof either way. Nor was it an actual crime, I had begun to realize over the past couple of months.

Sure enough, in response to the whistles, two more of the beasts were approaching from down the alley. I tried hard not to think about the size or proximity of them while Tattletale gave me the address that their boss had provided. Then I nodded. "All right, I'll meet you guys there. Be uhh, be careful."

With that little bit of awkwardness, I took a deep breath before activating my power. Everything went red, but I still hesitated there for a moment, staring at the four super villains, minor though they may have been. God, what was I doing? I'd set out to be a hero and on my first night I was helping a group of villains get their fellow villain teammate back. This was a horrible idea, but I had to follow through. Whatever kind of villain this new member of theirs was, she didn't deserve to die.

With that settled, I turned toward the wall to my left and plunged through and into the building beyond. The place was a nasty old motel full of the kind of people that paid by the hour and used that time for the kind of activities that most of the public tried to pretend didn't really happen. I tried to stay focused only on where I was going, a part of me hating myself for the voyeuristic nature of what I was doing, but even then I couldn't _**avoid**_ seeing a lot of stuff that I never wanted to. The best I could manage was to try to tell myself not to pay any attention to the faces, and to forget them as much as possible.

Through the awful motel I moved, passing people engaged in every kind of vice imaginable while I struggled to focus on absolutely anything else. Inevitably, that meant that I thought about Taylor.

Once upon a time, she and I had been friends. I'd taken it for granted, even back then. When her mom died, it was like a piece of Taylor died too. It was like the Taylor that I had known had disappeared, leaving this... stranger behind. She was never _really_ happy, never _really_ laughed, as if she was afraid that she wasn't allowed to **be** cheerful anymore. I kept waiting for my Taylor, _**my friend**_ to come back, but she wouldn't. She was gone, and in her place was this weepy, constantly moping little girl that refused to grow up, refused to accept that her mom was gone and she had to move on. It was like... she wanted things to stay the way they were when her mom was alive, like... if she didn't grow up and act like a teenager instead of a little kid, she wouldn't have to accept that she was going to do that growing up without a mom. So instead of my bright, cheerful, blabbermouth of a friend, I had a girl who didn't want to grow up, and who looked guilty every time she accidentally smiled.

I took it personally, I suppose. To me, in my deluded, stupid, selfish way, it felt as if _she_ had betrayed _me._ It felt as if my friend didn't want to _be_ my friend anymore, but would rather mope around.

No, that isn't fair. It's not. It's selfish and stupid and completely and totally _**not fair.**_ I know that now. I understand that _now._ And this explanation did nothing, absolutely **nothing** to excuse my choices and my actions. Those can never be excused. What I did was evil, plain and simple. My betrayal of Taylor was so far beyond my _subconscious feeling_ of betrayal from her while she was grieving that there was absolutely no comparison to be made. I was a self-centered bitch who was upset that my best friend was **grieving for her dead mother.** There would never, ever be an excuse for that.

The truth was, I had been a selfish, vicious cunt. No lies, no obfuscation, no mincing words. I was wrong. I was a traitor, and I had spent years torturing and destroying my best friend for no reason other than popularity, and to impress a psychopath. If anyone in this situation deserved to be the one staring vacantly at a wall, mind broken, it was me. I was the one who deserved to be stuck in that hospital.

And yet it hadn't been the sight of Taylor, broken as she was while being pulled out of that locker, that had destroyed the shell of lies and self-delusion that I had built around myself. It had set the cracks, to be sure, but it hadn't actually shattered the wall. If taken by itself, in the deepest, most shameful parts of my heart, I had to wonder if it would have been enough. It should have been. I desperately wanted to believe that it would have. But then again, seeing Taylor any number of times that we had hurt her, seeing the depths of how horrible we had made her life should have at least _nudged_ my humanity.

So no, the great crumbling of the wall that I had built around what remained of my soul had been seeing the reactions from _other students._ As I stood there, watching the catatonic girl who had, at one time, been my best friend be taken away, people... chuckled. Oh sure, most maintained what would be called a 'respectful silence', but a few chuckled, or even clapped once or twice. And as that grew, I heard a couple of jokes being tossed around, whispered so that the teachers wouldn't hear and yet directed toward me. One girl, I remember, made a comment from behind a hand and directed toward my ear about how Taylor's dad might want to bring the locker with him so he had a place to put her when he couldn't pay her hospital bills anymore. When I looked at her, she had seemed proud of herself, pleased with getting a reaction from those around her. But more than that, she had seemed eager for **my** reaction. She had stood there as if waiting for me to bless her little joke.

It was then, in that moment as I saw the face of the girl who would say such a vile, horrible thing that it truly struck me for the first time: this was the environment that _**I**_ had helped to create. Regardless of who Taylor was to me, regardless of what our relationship had been, _**this**_ was what the students around me thought I would like. I was brought face to face with the sick, evil environment that I had helped create over the past couple of years. A girl was taken to the hospital and might never recover, and their reaction was to not only make a joke about her father being too poor to take care of her, but also that he was so poor that he might be forced to put her _back in the thing that had traumatized her._ And she said it specifically to impress me. Because **that** was the environment that **I** had created.

It was that realization, after seeing Taylor taken away and then seeing how people _reacted_ to her being taken away, that finally, _**finally**_ shattered the wall of delusion I had built around myself. Because once I allowed myself to think that it was wrong for one person to make a joke about Taylor's condition, once that tiny nugget of conscience appeared, it caused a domino effect that systematically broke down everything else. If it wasn't okay for that person to make a joke about Taylor's condition, then Taylor's condition wasn't right. And if Taylor's condition wasn't right, then she didn't deserve it. And if she didn't deserve it, then what we had been doing was **wrong.** One by one, the carefully constructed lies that I had used to hide myself from acknowledging what we were doing were brought down. Everything we had done to Taylor over the past two school years came rushing back to me, seen through a different lens, through different eyes. I saw them, for the first time, through _her_ eyes. I saw what we had done, what we had turned the school into and how sick it all was. Betrayal after betrayal, I saw how it had affected both Taylor and the other people, the people who were now so desensitized to bad things happening to her that even _**this**_ couldn't shock them out of it.

When I woke up some time after passing out, I'd had the power to stop time for as long as I could hold my breath, the ability to stretch brief moments out. I'd had the ability to think, plan, and consider my actions. Every action I took, my power gave me the _time_ to think them through.

And right now, it was a power that would let me travel much further than I should have been able to in such a short time. I plunged through the last wall of the motel, dropped onto the sidewalk between a prostitute and a man that was on his way to her, and let time resume.

To the pair of not-so-righteous citizens, I appeared to pop up out of thin air. Both yelped, and the man pivoted on his heel before running back to his car while yelling over his shoulder that he was so sorry, he was going back to his wife and would I please not take him to the PRT.

The prostitute, meanwhile, proceeded to start screeching and cursing at me for driving away her client. Apparently he tipped well enough that she was ready and willing to kick my ass for scaring him off.

Thankfully, before she could claw for my eyes, I finished my brief break and took another deep breath before stopping time again. Now in the open, I oriented myself toward the place I needed to go and ran.

In this state I didn't really get tired other than the toll it took to use my power in quick succession, so I could run full out every time I was in it without being exhausted once time kicked in again. I used that to my advantage by racing across the street, through people, objects, and even more buildings. I didn't have to pay attention to roads or obstacles, I just picked the straight line toward my destination and hoofed it. I could have floated, of course, but that was honestly so slow that running was actually faster. It was useful for getting higher than jumping would allow, but definitely wasn't meant for speed.

So, I ran, popping in and out of the time stop here and there whenever I had to. Occasionally I took a brief breather so that I wouldn't have completely exhausted my power by the time I got there. Once I even took a few seconds at a nearby drinking fountain. But generally I just ran as fast as I could.

I heard the gunfire before seeing anything. The street where the villain girl was supposed to be was actually a dead-end, which I was really, _**really**_ hoping wasn't as bad of a sign as it seemed.

Checking the time on the throwaway phone in my pocket, I saw that I'd arrived only a few minutes after I'd set out. I'd probably been _running_ for about twenty or so, but only three or four had actually passed, even with the breaks that I'd had to take. Hopefully Bitch and the... the umm... **crap** what did they call themselves anyway? I felt like I should probably know that by now.

Then again, I still had no idea what I was going to call _myself,_ let alone other people. I was starting to have a few suspicions that I hadn't really been ready when I set out tonight.

Still, I was here now and someone needed help. Even if she _was_ a villain. So as soon as I heard the fighting in the distance, I pushed myself to go faster toward rather than away from it. That took some doing, considering my instincts were still screaming to get the hell away from the gunfire.

Coming out of the wall surrounding a public storage lot, I found myself at the deepest end of the dead-end street in question. Straight ahead of me were two old factory buildings with tires piled high in the back lot, visible through the well-worn fence. In the windows of the buildings I could see gun barrels and the occasional head or hand as the ABB members inside the building glanced out to check their targets. Those targets, meanwhile, were a couple dozen Empire soldiers who were liberally spraying gunfire at the buildings.

That was the situation I had walked into. The ABB defenders were using their cover and high ground to pick their shots against the far more numerous yet exposed Empire thugs. As I stared, open mouthed while asking myself what the _hell_ I thought I was going to do here, I saw a strange spectral-sort of light pass behind one of the windows. Then one of the ABB men was thrown out of the window by a ghost-like knight who disappeared a moment later.

Right, Crusader. Which obviously meant there were other Empire capes in the area as well. This just went from stupid scary to pants-pissingly terrifying. After my encounter with Oni Lee, the last thing I wanted tonight was to face off with some other cape that was going to kick my ass up and down the street.

Before I could worry too much about that, my eyes fell on a figure crouched in the darkness near the base of the factory fence, partially obscured by the overgrown vines and bushes.

As soon as I spotted the figure, I stopped time once again. No way was I going to risk crossing this street out in the open. Instead, as soon as the red shift fell over my view, I ran down the street and toward the semi-hidden figure.

I could see her a little bit better from up close, enough to tell that she didn't look like any tinker I'd ever heard of. There was no armor, no giant rifle or killer robot perched in front of her, and there wasn't some souped up hot rod car with guns popping out of it parked nearby as far as I could tell.

Letting time start, I spoke up in a whisper. "Hey, I'm here to-"

Stupid. The girl spun on me, some kind of small stick object pointed my way. I remembered, _tinker,_ and hit the ground with a yelp, terrified that a nuclear powered pen laser was about to blow a hole in my chest.

Yes, I ducked rather than simply jump back into my frozen time state. I panicked. At the same time, I managed to yelp out, "I'm trying to help!"

Holding her fire with... whatever it was, I saw the girl frown. "Help?" When it became clear that she wasn't going to shoot me, I hesitantly straightened and gave her another look now that my power wasn't tinting everything red.

Judging from her height and build, I thought she was about my age. She wore a long sleeved purple silk shirt that was partially covered by a black vest with violet lining, as well as what looked like simple dress slacks and shiny black shoes. Over her shoulders there was a cape, an actual **cape** , that was black on the outside and light purple on the inside. She also wore a black top hat with a purple band over it, and a silver half mask with what looked like amethysts where her eyes were covered her face down to her mouth. The skin that I could see was white.

"You're a umm... a tinker, right?" I asked slowly, uncertainly. Was she? "The tinker that was supposed to show up to help... uhh, Tattletale and her team." At her nod, I breathed in relief. "They're coming. It's sort of a long story, but I wanted to help get you out of danger."

The girl's voice voice was gravelly and deep as she responded. "I can't leave." She stood straight, the darkness of the nearby bushes all-but enveloping her while the cape that she wore served to obscure even more of her form. She kept speaking in that guttural, gravel-gargling voice. "I swore a vow when my parents were murdered before me that I would not stand idly by and allow violence to take my city. Those who seek to harm others will learn to fear me. If I fall in my duty, so be it. My blood is in the freedom of this city, my death will serve its future."

I blinked a couple of times. "What, seriously?"

Collapsing forward, the girl let out a long, wheezing laugh, coughing a few times to recover from the voice she had adopted. This time when she spoke, her tone was normal. "Fuuuuuuuck no, dude. I do what I do because it's fun as hell and my powers are god damn amazing. As am I, for the record. Fun as hell, _and_ god damn amazing. You should've seen your uhh... okay I can't see your face through that mask, but I bet it was great. Now how do we get out of here? Lemme guess, going by that red burst that showed up just before you did, you teleport or something?"

"Uhh, red burst?" Having no idea what she was talking about, I just blinked blankly for a second before shaking off the confusion to add, "I mean, something like that." I hesitated. "Only I can't actually take anyone with me." Flinching, I shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't really think this out, I guess." I sighed then. "There's a lot I didn't think out."

If the girl was annoyed by that fact, however, she didn't show it. "No big, dude. If I had a nickel for every time I did something without thinking it through, I wouldn't have to be a criminal anymore, I'll tell you that much."

Even as I started to that, a male voice from nearby demanded, "Hands up, bitches! Get your fucking hands-"

The girl turned in a single motion, the stick in her hand lifting to point at the man while she spoke a single word. A burst of light shot from the... I couldn't believe I was going to even think it, but... wand and into the man's eyes. He jerked backward with a cry about not being able to see, dropping his gun in the process.

Before he could recover from that (and before I could recover from my surprise), the girl held her sleeve out as though to demonstrate that there was nothing in it. As she did so, a long string of colorful handkerchiefs that had been knotted together into a rope shot out of from within her sleeve, far too long to have been stored within it. The makeshift rope wrapped itself around the still recovering man, binding him from his ankles to mouth, leaving just enough of his nose uncovered that he could keep breathing. He let out a muffled yell of protest before tipping over.

"You... you do... magic?" I stared at the girl.

In mid-bow, the girl lifted a finger in admonishment. "Ah, tricks. I do tricks, not magic. Remember, I'm a tinker, not one of those capes that thinks their powers are real magic."

"A tinker... you're a tinker and you make... magic tricks."

She grinned, full force so that I could see her teeth. "Now you're getting it, dude! But uhhh," the girl nodded past me. "I can't tie all **those** guys up."

Turning, I saw another half dozen men coming our way and paled. I hadn't even kept hold of the bat that I'd used against Oni Lee and his men, what was I going to do now?

In the next second, however, black smoke enveloped the rushing men, blocking them from our sight. Immediately afterwards, one of Bitch's 'dogs' landed hard on the ground in front of us with Tattletale perched on it. "You girls need a lift?"

"Sweet!" The magician-girl immediately clambered onto the beast, laughing with delight before offering her glove covered hand to me. "C'mon, dude, imetay to amscray."

In the days and even weeks that followed, I would have no idea what possessed me to take her offered hand and let her pull me onto that animal. It was stupid in so many different ways. I wasn't a part of this team, I wasn't even on their side. They obviously didn't need me to ride with them, and besides that, the girl these things belonged to had made it clear that she didn't want me on them.

Still, I let myself be pulled up and onto the beast. While the flashes of gunfire continued in the background, Tattletale gave me what felt like a long look deep enough to see all the way through me. Finally, she turned her attention front and called for the dog to go. In another instant, there was a whistle from some distance away and the dog leapt away from the ongoing battle. Flashes of light accompanied our departure, staccato bursts alongside the sound of guns themselves as the war continued without us.

That decision, made in the spur of the moment and without conscious thought, affect far more than just how I got away from that particular situation. It set the course for everything else that would happen to me from then on. Not that I had any inkling of that fact at the time.

Because honestly, how was I supposed to know that some of those flashes weren't from gunfire, but from the camera whose contents were _**already**_ being uploaded to the most popular and populated parahuman message board in the world?

 **2-04 – Taylor**

In the months that had passed since I was trapped inside my filth-filled locker, I had often thought that there was no further depth of loathing that I could sink to than the sensation of helplessness that ruled every facet of my life. Unable to enact any but the tiniest measure of free will upon my own body, and even that taking far too long to be of any use, I had thought that it was as bad as things could get. There couldn't possibly be any feeling worse than seeing my father kneel beside my bed and beg for me to give him some sign that I could hear him and then be utterly incapable of giving him what he wanted. Not even the locker itself had been as bad as feeling his tears against my skin as he kissed my cheek, yet being unable to do anything about it. He was right there, I could see and hear him as he clung to me, his body shaking from the force of his tears in spite of his every attempt to hold himself together. And yet I could do nothing for him. That was the single worst experience of my life.

Yet this, being rolled along the corridor in a wheelchair by people I _**barely**_ knew on the way to certain violence was a fairly close second. I was just as much a prisoner as I had ever been, but now people were going to be fighting, possibly dying, because of my choice. From this point on, if Faultline or any of her people were hurt, it was my fault. I had asked her to help. It was my responsibility.

It was the right choice, I was confident of that much. Lung's thugs would have free reign over as many hostages as they wanted if _someone_ didn't stop them, and Faultline's Crew were the only real candidates here. It was them or these sick and injured civilians. No contest there, even if Faultline was nice to me. Pragmatically speaking, her people could stop a lot more deaths and injuries from happening.

But that didn't help my mounting frustration with myself. Yes, it was my choice that had brought Faultline and her people to this, but I didn't want to lay here and be helpless. What kind of cape, what kind of parahuman became **less** capable after they gained their powers? What sense did that even make? If I was a cape, I had to be the worst, most pathetic one in existence.

I was so frustrated and full of loathing, in fact, that I couldn't stop my power from switching my vision. I felt it coming on, but before I could focus on trying to hold it back, my view had suddenly jumped.

Now instead of seeing a wide angle view of myself being rolled hurriedly down the corridor by Nurse Teddy as he followed Faultline, Gregor, and Emily, I was staring down the targeting scope of a rifle.

Calm. I breathed in and then out smoothly, letting the rifle scope dance across parking lot below the roof where I was perched. The crosshairs passed over the rampaging Lung as Assault and Armsmaster worked to hem him in as much as they could, but didn't dwell long. I felt a rush of anger and frustration as the crosshairs centered on the gang leader, as temptation to pull the trigger itched at me. But I forced the feeling away and moved the sights onward to another target. There was no point to shooting the monstrous figure, not when he was amped up this much. Instead, I brought the head of one of the ABB soldiers that I could see through the hospital entrance. He was waving a gun and shouting at somebody. A single squeeze of the trigger sent a shot through the glass that put him down.

The shock in that moment of actually seeing a man, even one of the ABB, shot to death knocked me out of the sniper's point of view and back into my all-around vision. Disoriented as I was, it took a moment for me to realize that Faultline was crouched down in front of my chair, talking to me.

"-down the stairs to meet them." Her voice was terse, clearly accustomed to giving commands that would then be obeyed. Unfortunately, I had tuned out so I had no idea what she had been saying or what had happened in that time. Damn it, why was I so useless!? There had to be something I was missing, something I could do so that I could actually affect things.

Before I could lament my condition any longer, Gregor replaced Faultline in front of me. I simultaneously watched his face and the back of his head with my strange wrap-around vision while the man carefully lifted me out of the chair. "Apologies, Miss Hebert. Were it but possible for your noble steed to be more stallion and less... jellyfish, we would gladly provide." His voice was careful and precise, with a bit of an accent that I couldn't place. There was also a slight pause while he spoke, the man obviously taking the time to choose each word carefully that showed that he wasn't completely comfortable with the language. In spite of the unfamiliarity, however, there was a certain disarming kindness and politeness to his voice. That, as well as his gentle touch as he settled my slight figure into his arms were at odds with his outward appearance. Most people looking at the bald, obese man with shell-like scabs randomly dotting nearly transparent skin probably would have dismissed him as a thug at best.

The younger woman, Emily, went to the nearby door first. It was the stairs, which explained why they had taken me out of the chair. Behind Gregor, Teddy was gripping the handles of the chair tightly, his face lined with worry as he kept glancing from me to the windows where the fighting was still audible.

With Emily and Faultline leading the way, and Teddy bringing up the rear with the wheelchair, Gregor carried me down the stairs. They moved quickly and quietly from the fifth floor to the fourth, then toward the third. As they neared that landing, however, my wide-angle view showed one of the ABB members approaching with his shotgun held high, checking each room on his way through. Patients he left alone, but any nurse, doctor, or orderly he encountered was ordered at gunpoint to go down the hall in the other direction. Clearly they were being rounded up for some reason.

Realizing that the man was going to reach the stairwell right after we passed it, thereby putting an armed gunman right at our backs, I struggled to lift my hand to warn them. Just under a minute was my absolute best time, and that was **still** way too long. I needed to help! I needed to warn them before the man with the gun reached the entrance to the stairs and ended up coming out right behind us.

Yet, to my surprise, Emily didn't pass the landing and keep going. She stopped and cocked her head as though listening. Then she stepped past the door to put herself on the opposite side of it, holding a hand up for the others to wait while she continued to listen carefully. A second later she held up a single finger before using two fingers to simulate someone walking and nodded to the door.

Nodding once, Faultline moved to the opposite side of the door. The two of them waited there silently for another handful of seconds before the door began to swing open.

The poor Chinese man stepping into view with his shotgun held lazily to one side never saw it coming. Faultline's hand lashed out to brush over the gun and there was some kind of flash of red and blue energy before the weapon fell apart into several pieces which proceeded to clatter to the floor.

As he turned toward Faultline, Emily stepped up behind the man and put one hand on each of his shoulders while kicking the door shut once more.

"Do you know who I am?" Faultline asked the man point blank. When he focused and had a good look at her, he paled a little before nodding quickly. Once he did, the woman continued. "Good. Then you know I'm not lying when I tell you that the person standing behind you is capable of spitting liquid fire straight into the back of your skull if you don't do exactly as you're told."

The man stiffened at the threat but eventually gave a reluctant nod, after which Faultline went on. "You have anything to bind yourself with? Handcuffs, zipties, whatever?"

"Fuck you, bitch." The man spat the words impulsively. "Lung will rip you all apart." I thought there was something weird about the movement of the man's mouth, but couldn't figure it out.

"What'd he say?" Emily asked while keeping her hands on the man's shoulders.

Faultline shrugged one shoulder. "About what you'd expect. He says that Lung is going to kill us."

I was confused. Why did Emily need the other woman to tell her what the man had said when she was standing right there? She could hear just fine, as evidenced by her noticing the man approaching the stairway to begin with.

"Lung is not here to protect you," Faultline informed the man. "Only we are. Would you like to die now, or do what you're told and live to fight another day? It's your choice, but we _are_ in a hurry."

The man's shoulders slumped somewhat at that and he muttered, "Left front pocket."

"Good boy," Faultline praised him before focusing on the other woman. "Left front pocket, he should have some kind of bindings."

What was going on? Why did she have to repeat what the man had said? Why was Emily acting like she couldn't hear? Focused as I was, it took me a second to realize the truth. It wasn't that Emily couldn't hear, it was that she couldn't _understand._ The man had been speaking another language, Japanese probably. Faultline as well has been speaking that other language when she replied to him. Yet I had heard it in English. Or my head had translated it immediately. That's why I'd thought there was something odd about the man's mouth when he spoke. His lips weren't matching up with what I was hearing. Somehow, my power was giving me an instant translation of his words.

I would have preferred the amazing super power of being able to stand up and walk around.

Emily found the ties in the man's pocket and bound his wrists behind his back. Once that was done, Faultline reached out to take off the radio that was clipped to his belt and held it to his mouth. "Tell them that the second floor is clear." She looked to Emily then. "If he says anything else, flame him."

The button was pressed, and the man hesitated for only a second before dutifully reporting that the second floor had been cleared. An impatient voice demanded that he check the windows to make sure none of the PRT agents or cops were climbing up to get in that way, and to watch for snipers because Sasumu was already down. Faultline left the radio on long enough for their prisoner to acknowledge, then stuck it onto her own belt before nodding. "Second floor, go."

With Emily's hands steady on the man's shoulders to make sure he knew she was right behind him, they let him lead the way down to the second floor. I could already see that the area around the door was empty, but they still took the time to make sure by sending the bound goon through first.

I wondered why we were going to the second floor, a question I'm sure I'd have known the answer to if I hadn't been tuned to sniper-vision while Faultline was explaining it. My frustration with myself and the situation was growing worse by the second. Which wasn't helped when there was a sudden shout from the end of the hall, beyond the range of my vision.

Gregor sat me back down in the wheelchair that Teddy had been carrying, just as three ABB thugs came running into range of my vision. The first brought up a pistol and aimed at Gregor, but a sudden spray of liquid fire from Emily's mouth shot toward him and the man flailed backwards with a scream.

The second man was struck by a stream of liquid that Gregor shot from his extended hand which knocked the thug into the wall before hardening almost immediately, leaving him stuck there by an off-white shell that nearly covered his entire body.

The third man, meanwhile, stood back out of the way with his gun raised, shouting for them to get down. Before any of them had to deal with him, however, an orange blur flew in out of nowhere before slamming into the man. The blow knocked him to the ground, and then I saw what had hit him: a young man maybe a little bit older than me with orange skin, dark red hair that looked like he had just stepped out of the shower, and a long tail. That last part of the boy's anatomy flicked upward and over his own arm briefly, and I saw the glistening sweat that it wiped away. Then the tail went down to brush over the face of the fallen man while he was grabbing for the gun that he had dropped when he was hit from behind. As soon as the sweat-soaked tail made contact, the man's eyes rolled back and he stopped trying for the gun while a goofy smile crossed his face. He was clearly out of it.

"Newter," Faultline greeted the orange figure. "Any trouble getting Labyrinth inside?"

"Nah," he replied casually while looking over his shoulder. "We're good, right?"

Another figure entered the range of my vision, this one a female in a dark green robe that had a maze drawn on it, and a simple mask. The girl didn't seem to be paying attention to the people talking. Rather, her focus was on the wall beyond them. She stepped that way, hand outstretched toward it as though reaching for something that no one else could see.

Faultline's voice was kind, like it had been when she spoke to me. "I know we promised you the night off and it wasn't fair to go back on that. So are you okay, Labyrinth?" She waited a moment before repeating the question. Only when the distracted girl nodded did she move on.

Then Newter focused on where my body was sitting, taking a step toward the wheelchair. As he moved, that tail of his swept up to brush the face of the bound prisoner. "Heya," he waved with his hand and his tail simultaneously while the ABB goon dropped to the floor. "So you're the Hebert girl, huh?"

"Newter, this is Taylor." Faultline intoned while waving back and forth. "Taylor, this is Newter."

Some distracted, overwhelmed part of my brain noticed that, in spite of his orange skin, the boy was rather attractive. I might've blushed at his attention, if I'd been physically capable of it.

"Hey look," Newter pointed. "She's blushing."

Oh sure, _**that**_ my body was actually capable of doing on command. Traitor.

Thankfully, I was distracted from my embarrassment by Faultline. "Okay, you," she looked toward Teddy, "will stay here with Taylor while the rest of us clear out the lobby." To me, she added, "I promised that we'd stop the ABB from taking over the hospital. Will you be okay waiting here while we do that?" She waited the fifty-four seconds before my right hand raised and then nodded. "Good, you should be safe here, but if anything happens..." She pressed what looked like a small cell phone into Teddy's hand. "Press the call button if there's trouble."

Pale-faced, Teddy gave a quick nod. "B-be careful, Ems."

Emily promised that she would be, and then they moved back to the stairs. By that time, my view area had widened enough that I could see a decent amount of the floor below us if I shifted my focus a little that way. Doing so revealed the entrance lobby where a handful of the ABB thugs were tipping over chairs and benches and piling them up a short distance from the doors to act as cover that they could fire from if the building was breached. The nearly headless body of the one who had been taken by the sniper explained why they were all staying well away from the windows and doors.

I could also see the hostages gathered in the middle of the waiting area. There were dozens of patients and hospital staff, with more arriving by the second.

I really hoped that Faultline and her people could do this without letting anyone else get hurt.

Sudden and utterly unexpected pain in my side snapped my attention back upward to where my body was now laying on its side. The wheelchair had been knocked out from under me and was sitting a few feet away, while Teddy scrambled backwards on the floor, his eyes on the three ABB thugs who were standing over us. He'd dropped the phone somehow, and was reaching for it.

Unfortunately, a fourth goon stepped into view from the other side and kicked the phone further away. "You trying to call someone, son of a bitch?" Some distant part of my brain acknowledged that he hadn't actually said the words 'son of a bitch', but some other language that meant the same thing.

Another of the ABB soldiers was crouched in front of my body, waving a hand in front of my face before flicking my cheek with his fingers. "Hey, Ji-hoon, I think we found a vegetable." He laughed obnoxiously and flicked my cheeks again.

"Leave her alone!" Teddy abandoned his reach for the phone and started to lunge that way, but a backhanded blow from Ji-hoon, the one who had kicked the phone away, put him back on the floor.

"You do this?" The thug gestured to the two gang members that were still lost in the effects of Newter's sweat. "You drug our friends, huh?" He slid a wicked looking knife from its sheath on his belt. "Maybe I cut out your eyes, see if you think it's funny then."

"You watch, carrot girl." The thug who had been flicking my cheek held my chin and turned my head toward the spot where one of the other ABB members had grabbed Teddy and was holding him steady as Ji-hoon advanced with his knife.

Fuck! No! I couldn't just fucking sit here and let this happen. Not this, not now! I was supposed to have powers? I was supposed to be a parahuman, a cape? What the **fuck** kind of cape was so fucking helpless she couldn't even try to stop something like this? What was the _point_ of having powers if I couldn't help anybody?

Okay, body, you made me sit here while dad cried and begged for some kind of sign that I could hear him. You made me suffer through that. But not this time. Not this time. You are not going to sit here and let the friendly nurse who actually _talked_ to you like a normal person, who went out of his way to get you to people who could actually help and might have risked his job in the process, get maimed by these monsters.

You're a parahuman, Taylor, prove it. Move.

Move.

 _ **MOVE!**_

Something in my brain... clicked. My frame of view abruptly widened. I could suddenly see all the way up and down the hallway, into every room, and onto the floor both above and below us.

It was more than that though. It wasn't just that I could see everything, the information flowing into my head in that second was obscenely detailed. Not only did I somehow know everything from the air pressure, to the temperature, to precise amounts of gases that made up the air around us, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Numbers filled my head, which _somehow_ sorted through all of them. I could see exactly how each person's movement disrupted the air, slightly changing the pressure with each twitch. I could see exactly how one man's arm was going to move even before it did, just from the slightest change in pressure, and my brain somehow extrapolated that out to precise angles.

I could look at one of the men and suddenly be awash in information. I knew how old they were, everything they were carrying, what their clothes were made out of, even that one of the men had broken his arm badly a few years earlier and it had never quite healed right.

And most importantly of all... my hand was closed around the wrist of the man who had been flicking my cheek.

"Hey, yo, she ain't-" The man started to call out.

I saw the angle and the exact pressure that was needed, and my free hand lashed out to smack hard into the man's throat. His words were choked off as he stumbled, eyes wide.

A simple thought brought my body to its feet. I was standing up. My field of vision still wasn't inside my own eyes, but I was **standing.** That in itself was an act that should have made me sob from joy. Yet I was angry. I was livid and for once, for _once,_ I wasn't just going to sit back and take it. Not this time. Not now.

The other men had noticed what was going on. One of them, the nearest, yanked a pistol from the back of his pants. He aimed, but it was sloppy. From my all-encompassing view, I saw the exact path the bullet would take. Not only that, but as wide as that vision was, I could even tell that it wouldn't hit any bystanders. In that single split-second, my brain somehow processed where the gun was pointed and calculated the trajectory of the bullet. I saw and understood where it would hit the first time, where it would ricochet to, and then where it would embed itself.

I didn't even flinch as the man pulled the trigger. He aimed again. This time he would have hit me, but I saw where the bullet would go and instinctively knew the precise movement that I needed to make to avoid it. Just before the trigger was pulled the second time, my body jerked sideways, twisting just enough to let the trajectory of the bullet pass between my raised arm and left side.

Again he fired, and again I avoided it simply by knowing exactly where the bullet was going to go.

"Settle down, cunt!" The guy with the knife was pressing it closer to Teddy. "Or he gets-"

I took two quick steps sideways, bringing the angle of the man's gun onto the trajectory that I wanted. I could see where the bullet was going to go, and I manipulated his aim until it lined up correctly. He fired again, and again he missed. This time, however, the bullet didn't bounce away harmlessly. Instead, it ricocheted off of the wall and went straight through Ji-hoon's wrist. He howled and dropped the knife.

Finally, the thug with the gun got tired of shooting and came straight at me, swinging the gun like a club with a wild yell. Again, I saw everything I needed to. The angle of his approach, his speed, information that would have overwhelmed most people filled my head. I saw and simultaneously understood everything I needed to do to disarm him.

First, I instructed my body to sidestep his lunge. A quick smack of my hand against his wrist at a precisely calculated angle and force knocked the gun from his grasp and into my own waiting hand. My body spun around, letting the man pass me by while a nudge from my foot to his ankle sent him sprawling headfirst into the wall where he lay and whimpered, cradling his wrist.

I continued turning, gun outstretched until the next angles lined up correctly. I pulled the trigger twice in short succession. The first bullet hit the knife on the ground and sent it skittering away from Ji-hoon, who had been reaching for it with his uninjured hand. The second shot, meanwhile, rebounded off the floor, hit the wall, rebounded off of _that_ and then struck the third goon who had been rushing up from behind my body. It hit him in the shoulder, making him fall with a howl of pain.

The man that I had struck in the throat was running away, trying to escape down the hall. My powers judged his speed and then I lifted my leg and gave the wheelchair a kick. The chair rolled down the hall at an angle that sent it into the fleeing man's path just in time for him to plow right into it. He went down in a heap and groaned, but didn't get up again.

Ji-hoon by then was cursing rapidly. "What the _fuck_ are you?" He demanded while holding his injured, bleeding hand.

His answer came not from me, but from Teddy as the nurse clubbed him over the head with one of the fallen guns. The goon collapsed, leaving the hallway clear of threats.

"Taylor!" Teddy was staring at me with wide eyes. "You're... you're okay! You can move. You can—Taylor?"

His voice was fading away, and I felt my hands go numb once more. The gun fell from my limp grasp, and then my body collapsed as my field of view shrank back to what it had been before, all of the extra information fading back to background noise. Whatever had clicked in my head was gone now that the threat was dealt with. I heard Teddy calling my name as he sprang to catch my falling body, but my vision was already fading out.

I was suddenly tired... so very... very tired.

 **2-05 – Sophia**

Why were people so fucking useless? Twenty minutes after I call in for the police to come play taxi for the wannabe muggers or whatever they thought they were, and I was still sitting here playing babysitter. Christ, how hard was it to send a god damn squad car, toss them in the back, and drive them to jail. I already did all the actual work for the fat, lazy fucks. The least they could do was stop double fisting hoagies long enough to take these jackasses off my hands so I could get back to it.

Not long ago, I would've just made sure the thugs couldn't get away and booked it. Waiting around was boring and stupid. Even now, I didn't exactly know why I was staying. I grew more annoyed with each passing minute, both at the cops' continued failure to show up, and my own inability to understand why I didn't just fucking tell the girl I'd saved to let the cops know what happened and leave. It wouldn't have been the first time that the police had to track me down later to get my statement. Yet I stayed, even as my annoyance at that fact continued to grow.

At least Little Miss Would-Be Victim had gotten the message and stopped trying to talk to me after the third time that I responded to her babbling with a grunt. She was sitting nearby, talking excitedly on her phone with her mother about meeting up with her at the police station after she gave her statement.

I was sorely tempted to tell her to have her mother turn on the news and find out if every cop in the city spontaneously came down with an even more severe case of sucksattheirjobitus than usual.

The wait was made worse by the fact that I stupidly checked my phone messages. Or rather, the lack thereof. Most of the messages on the conversation screen were from me to Emma, trying to set a time for us do something, with the latest being a short update on my route for the evening in case she wanted to meet up later and get something to eat. She'd responded a couple times, but always to say she was busy, or her parents wouldn't let her go out, or she had work.

Switching school sucked ass. When I first heard they were splitting us up and moving me to Arcadia, I'd known it would be bad, but not like this. Madison **never** talked to me, which is why I was still convinced that she had been the one who ratted us out. And even though Emma still at least _talked_ to me, she was busy or grounded so often she might as well live in a different state.

"Shadow Stalker, this is Armsmaster. Give me your current location."

Jumping slightly as the sudden voice cut into my brooding thoughts, I scowled before hitting the button that would make my communicator work. "Same place I've been for the past twenty minutes. Waiting for someone with a car to come pick up these lowlifes." I kicked one of the slumbering men in the side.

"Twenty-one words, and not one of them was an answer to my question." The uptight tinker's voice was hard. It was always hard lately. He and fat old Piggyfuck were always pissed off at me lately. I had thought that it was bad back when I was first forced into the Wards, but that had been a picnic compared to the microscope that those two had stuck me under for the past couple months. They wanted an accounting of everything I did during every minute of my day. Literally, I was supposed to write down my activities with time notes into a journal and turn it in at the end of each week. And they were checking up on me in other ways, I was sure.

Not that there was any reason for me to lie anyway. I wasn't really doing anything outside of this and all the extra work Piggyfuck had me doing at the PRT HQ. The fat bitch got off on ordering me around, making me do fucking janitorial work, mostly involving cleaning up the bathrooms and offices to her specifications. She even made me wear one of their ugly brown jumpsuits while doing it. Sure, I got to keep my mask on, but all that did was make it crystal clear that _**Shadow Stalker**_ was the one scrubbing that toilet. I would've preferred the anonymity of being some random teenager on work detail. But Piggyfuck knew that, so she made sure that I had to do the work with the mask in place. Everyone in the building knew I was in trouble, that I had been on the razor's edge of ending up in Juvie.

Not that all the extra work mattered. At least it was something to do besides sit at home or go to school. Outside of cape stuff, those were pretty much my only options. My mom hadn't spoken more than a dozen words to me in private since everything went down, and about half of those had been 'don't you blame Steven for your problems.'

Shaking off those dwelling thoughts, I forced myself to respond as simply as I could manage. "Fine, I'm on Dalben and Twenty-First, across the street from the mattress store. Do you-"

Before I could finish asking if he wanted directions, Armsmaster interrupted with a blunt, "Hold." Then the line went dead for a few seconds before his voice came back. "We have a Lung situation. We're working to contain him, but it's escalating and some of his men have taken hostages."

"Lung?" I pushed off the wall, ignoring the wide-eyed look that the name brought to the civilian girl's face as she stared at me. "Why didn't you say so before? I'm on my way."

That flat voice returned. "Believe it or not, we're not quite so far down our list of contingency plans that we've reached 'chuck a fifteen-year old girl with a crossbow and delusions of grandeur at him and see what happens.' If you see us reach the plan where we're trying to use Battery in a princess dress to lure him out of the city after he's gone full dragon, that's when you can consider yourself on deck."

Jeeze, _someone_ was in a snarky mood. I opened my mouth to snap out a retort, but something made me stop myself and take a breath first. Swearing at the guy in charge of the local Protectorate probably wasn't going to help anything, as cathartic as it might have felt for a second. Somehow, I made myself stick to a simple, "Then what do you want me to do?" And I managed it with minimal teeth grinding.

There was a brief pause, and I shifted anxiously from foot to foot before Armsmaster's voice came back. "There's also an Empire situation that we can't deal with right now. They're attacking a building in ABB territory, and there are civilians in the way. The rest of your team is already heading there. Meet up with them and get the civilians out of harms way. That's the priority, Shadow Stalker, _**not**_ fighting. Aegis is in charge. You listen to him, got it? Any problems and I swear you'll have console duty for a month."

"Yeah, yeah." I was just happy to leave the thugs behind. "I'm on my way, just give me the location."

Before I could take off after getting the address, the girl spoke up. "Hey, you're not really going to fight Lung are you?" Her eyes were still wide as she stared at me.

I hesitated, inwardly kicking myself for it before shaking my head. "No, just another situation."

"Oh." She paused for a moment as if considering that before giving me a thumbs up. "Well, good luck! And thanks again for... this." Her hands gestured around at the unconscious men.

For a second, I said nothing. Then I reached under the cloak of my costume and came out with a few of my tranquilizer bolts. "Here," Dropping them into her hand, I pointed to the nearest of the men. "Any of them start to move, stick one of those in them. It should last until the cops show up."

Before she could say anything else, I turned and entered my shadow state while leaping up, going in and out of it to bounce off the nearby walls in order to get higher so I could travel faster.

The Empire, huh? Good. No one gave a fuck if I kicked the shit out of them. And maybe, just maybe, I'd lose myself in the fight long enough to stop picturing Taylor Hebert's broken, traumatized and empty face for more than five minutes for one time since she was pulled out of that fucking locker.

Scion knew that hadn't happened so far.

* * *

It wasn't hard to find the buildings that the Empire was attacking. All I had to do was follow the sound of all the gunshots. By the time I arrived, the rest of the Wards were already on the outskirts of the back lot behind the factory, and I took a second to watch them. Triumph's recent graduation to the Protectorate had left pseudo-Brute Aegis in charge as the oldest, though he'd only be the leader for a short time before he too moved on.

Gathered around Aegis were Vista, Gallant, Clockblocker, and Chronicler. The last was the other major team shake-up beyond Triumph's graduation, a recent transfer that was supposed to make up for Kid Win's family moving out of town a month earlier. All of them glanced up as I arrived before looking away. While Armsmaster and and Piggot were doing what they could to work me to the bone, my supposed teammates had spent the last couple of months giving me the cold shoulder. They didn't speak to me any more than they had to outside of training or in the field. Chronicler was the only one who didn't know much about the situation, but even he rarely said much to me.

I'd tried to lie to myself and say that they were afraid of me, but it never worked.

"Okay," Aegis spoke up a little louder, a concession to my presence. "We've got three streets to evacuate." Pointing to a small makeshift diagram he'd drawn into the dirt with his toe, he went on. "The two factories are here. Then there's this street to the west, and these two streets to the east and north-east. We need to get the civilians clear of those areas before this gets even worse than it already is."

He pointed to Clockblocker and Gallant. "You two take the west street. Any Empire soldiers get in your way, use Gallant to corral them so that Clockblocker can put them in time out."

I stood there, a few yards away from the rest of the others, and watched silently as we were divided into teams. Vista and Chronicler went to the first street to the east, while Aegis partnered me with himself.

"Priority is the civilians, guys." The emphasis in his words was unmistakable. As was the fact that he was looking in my direction. "We get them out of danger. Any questions?"

"Nope," I couldn't resist. "Save civilians. It's kind of what we do, right? We're heroes."

For a long moment after I spoke, none of them said a damn word. Then Vista spoke, her quiet voice breaking the suddenly even more uncomfortable silence. "Not all of us." The kid actually stared straight at me while she said it, unflinching and uncompromising. Then she turned on her heel and started away without another word. Chronicler joined her belatedly as a flick of Vista's hand shrank the space in front of her. Two steps later and they were gone.

No one corrected her. No one reprimanded her. No one said a single word about it save for Gallant, who started to speak after looking at me silently for a couple of seconds. "I think-"

Before he could continue, I shook myself and started to move. "What the fuck are we still standing here for? You trying to play 'evacuate civilians' on hard mode or something?" Without waiting for a response, I started to dash across the field, using my shadow state to go faster with each leaping bound.

What the hell did Vista know, anyway? I was a hero. I put my life on the line every fucking time I went out here. Yeah, I went over the line with Hebert. But it's not like I meant for her to get that hurt. I wasn't some cackling villain. I still did the job, I still risked my neck, same as her. What right did she have to act all morally superior? We were both out here, doing the same job, weren't we? What was the difference between what she did and what I did? And why did that last question seem so important?

The three boys exchanged quiet words briefly before Aegis caught up with me. He said nothing aside from telling me to go solid. When I did, he caught me under the arms and carried me off the ground. It was faster than my shadow-state running, and we reached the street in question within a few seconds.

As soon as we came within sight of the street, a handful of Empire goons became visible. They were crossing the street toward the factory parking lot, laying down heavy suppressive fire toward the windows of the factory itself. At the same time, the ABB people within were shooting back. Bullets were flying in every direction. The whole street was a god damn war zone.

And these houses were occupied. There were **people** in these homes that were providing the backdrop to this battle. I could hear babies crying inside several of the houses, and several people kept poking their heads through curtains or above windowsills. These motherfuckers were going to end up getting a hell of a lot of people killed at this rate.

My first instinct was to jump to my shadow state and simply drop without saying a word to Aegis. Why the hell did I need a babysitter anyway? But I didn't. Instead, I stopped myself and spoke. "I've got this, drop me on them." He started to object, and I pressed on. "Look, you can lead those people out the back and tank anything you might run into. If I try to lead them out and run into anything, the best I can do is go insubstantial at them, which won't help any fucking civilians that are with me. I go down there now, I put down those guys and maybe the ones in the factory turn their attention somewhere else. That gives you time to get the civilians here out of the way."

Still, he hesitated as if trying to either figure out why I was explaining things that way, or to find the flaw in what I was suggesting. Maybe he was trying to figure out if I was lying to him.

"Fine," Aegis finally replied tersely. "But be careful, got it?" I had a feeling he wasn't telling me just to keep myself safe, but also (and probably more importantly) to make sure no one _else_ got hurt. "Put them down, make sure the coast is clear, then meet back up."

"Yeah, yeah." Rather than wait for him to release me, I jumped to my shadow state and let myself fall.

I plummeted toward the nearest group, pulling both crossbows from their holsters and shot at two of the men. The first missed, but the second man went down a second before my boots smacked into the shoulders of the third. He was knocked sprawling to the ground with me on top of him. I shot a bolt into his back just to be sure before rolling off and onto the pavement.

One of the men tried to smack the crossbow out of my left hand, but I went insubstantial again for a brief second before sweeping around into a kick that knocked his leg out from under him. At the same time, I pointed the crossbow in my right hand backwards and triggered a shot that hit the man that I'd missed the first time, while I was falling. That one hit and he went down.

Smirking to myself, I was just turning to check on what the gunmen in the factory were doing when excruciating pain abruptly exploded into my right leg. A cry of surprise escaped me and the crossbows fell from my hands. I hit the ground, looking back in disbelief to see a long, wickedly curved knife shoved through the muscle of my thigh. It was held by the hand of the man that I'd landed on, the man that I had deliberately shot with a tranquilizer bolt. There was no way he should be moving this soon.

The knife twisted again, and I cried out, instinctively jumping into my shadow state. Which helped, but I still couldn't stand. The pain in my leg was too great.

The man holding the knife where my leg was looked up, and I finally got a decent look at him. He wore a jacket and a baseball cap, but beneath those was a man in a costume that I recognized.

Alabaster. Fuck. That explained why the tranquilizer hadn't kept him down. His body reverted back to its pristine state every few seconds or something. I wasn't sure about the specifics, and the pain in my leg was making it hard to think too much about it.

"My apologies," he spoke politely, the tone at odds with the viciousness that he had stabbed me with. "This just wasn't your fight."

"Yeah? Well it's not over yet." I growled the words. "In case you missed it, you can't stab a fucking shadow." I ignored the pain and gestured to my leg where the knife still was, not that it was accomplishing anything.

Alabaster inclined his head. "Your disagreement is noted and your enthusiasm admirable," his polite, careful tone was the same as before. "But I believe it is." His thumb moved over the hilt of the knife, and I saw it brush a button.

Wait, button? On a knife? Just as that thought struck me, the clearly tinker-designed knife was enveloped with electricity. The pain of that coupled with that of the stab wound drove all conscious thought from my mind.

Distantly, I heard someone screaming, realizing only belatedly that it was me. I was back in my solid form, lying half-conscious on my side. Something jabbed into my arm, and I recognized one of my own tranquilizer bolts. My vision swam then while Alabaster strode easily away from me and toward the factory, dropping my crossbow on his way.

And yet, the last view that I had as I lay there on my side wasn't of the man who had stabbed, electrocuted, and then shot me with my own tranquilizer bolt. Instead, I saw one of the Undersider's massive dogs running away from the scene. I couldn't see that son of a bitch Grue, but his partner in crime Tattletale was there alongside two other capes that I didn't recognize. One was dressed up like some kind of stage magician, while the other wore some red and black outfit.

"Fuck me..." My vision was already drifting in and out as the tranquilizer took hold. "There's more of them."

 **2-06 – Madison**

It didn't take very long after I picked myself up from the ground before I realized who that group had to have been. The Undersiders weren't exactly major players, but they were the only people I could think of who matched the whole 'riding around on giant animals' thing. I had thought that those were suppose to be dogs though, and the thing that had nearly run me down hadn't looked the slightest bit like a dog.

The notion of going after them entertained itself in my head for about four seconds before I dismissed it. I had no way of catching up with them since my powers hadn't come complete with a jetpack. Jogging was pretty much my first and last method of transportation at this point.

Before I could decide what to do, and whether or not I should bother trying to call the authorities about seeing the Undersiders in the area, the sound of running feet drew my attention the other way. Something made me take couple steps back into the shelter of the nearby alley that I had nearly gotten creamed coming out of the first time. I pressed my back to the wall of the building and listened.

The footsteps, at least three or four sets of them, drew closer before stopping right on the other side of alley opening. I could hear the men panting and cursing under their breath, some in English and others in what sounded like Chinese or Japanese. So either this was a bunch of lost tourists out on an evening run, or the ABB had been chasing the Undersiders. Considering the condition of the Brockton Bay tourism department, I was going to go with the latter.

Keeping the words I was hearing in mind, I focused on my power and imagined the Japanese to English dictionary and phrase book that I had absorbed a few days earlier, just in case. The first few words didn't translate at all, and I was considering switching over to one of the other Asian language books that I'd brought along. But then I heard the shrill ring of a cell phone before one of the other men shouted a word that immediately translated as 'Wait.' The ringing phone was answered, and a short conversation ensued. I could only hear one side of it, and kept having to translate what I was hearing, but as far as I could tell the guy speaking was receiving orders from someone important.

He disconnected the call a minute later and spoke a long string of words that my connection to the Japanese book belatedly translated as something fairly close to 'Others chase other girl near factory. Oni Lee say to help trap girl to catch other children.'

They set off, back the way they'd come, while I frowned. There was some other girl that they'd been chasing, maybe one of the Undersider, and they had her near some factory? And now these reinforcements were heading back to help trap the girl so they could use her as bait or something.

Okay, so the girl was probably another villain. But did that really matter? After all, _Sophia_ was technically one of the Wards, who were the so-called 'good guys', so I was pretty sure that what team someone was on didn't preclude them from being good or bad. And even if she was bad, she definitely didn't deserve whatever the ABB had in mind. I doubted that their idea of kidnapping and using her as bait would involve locking her in a room with a television and orders to entertain herself.

On the other hand, it was the ABB, what could I actually do? I couldn't keep my protective absorb field up indefinitely, because after the first few seconds, it became exponentially harder to maintain. The longest I'd managed to keep it up before collapsing had been about fifteen consecutive seconds, and _that_ had been completely exhausting. I needed breaks in between uses, and from the sound of things there were going to be a lot of ABB soldiers at this factory. The idea of going there, of actually facing not just one bitter old drunk with a baseball bat, but a small army of thugs that would definitely be armed with things a hell of a lot deadlier, was terrifying. Who the hell did I think I was to consider it?

A bully. A bitch. A monster. That's who I was. That's who I'd been. That was the kind of person that I had let myself become, and in doing so I'd help to destroy an innocent girl's life. Taylor was broken, her mind shattered because of what _**I**_ helped do. So who cared if this was dangerous? Who cared how scared I was? How scared had Taylor been of me? How much thought had I put into how she felt?

So no, I couldn't walk away from this, no matter how scared I was. I had to force down my fear and help this random girl, if I could. Whatever team she was on, she didn't deserve to be put through whatever torment the ABB had in mind. And if I died? Well, at least I would have done my best.

Though it felt like my inner turmoil and fear had lasted for hours, a quick peek around the wall showed that the departing thugs had barely reached the end of the block. Taking a breath, I produced the mask and jacket, hurriedly pulling them on before giving the running men another glance.

Okay, time to follow them and see where this factory was so I could help this girl they were after. And if I was lucky, I'd manage to do so without letting my fear get any worse than it already was.

Because 'was shot to death by the gang members she was following after they were alerted to her presence by the sound of the idiot peeing herself' would probably be the worst ending to the shortest vigilante career in the history of ever.

* * *

It wasn't hard to trail the ABB thugs back to the factory that they'd been talking about. Focused as they were on getting there, they weren't exactly paying a lot of attention for anyone that might have been following them. Still, I didn't want to push my luck too far so I stayed a decent distance back.

Plus, even if the men did get out of sight, there was always the sound of gunfire to show me the way. I'd been hearing it for several blocks, a mixture of automatic weapon fire and short, precise shots that echoed through the night. It sounded like some kind of war was going on. Was this _really_ all over the ABB trying to catch one girl? That was insane. Plus it sounded like some of that gunfire was being directed back and forth at one another. This couldn't be as simple as chasing down one girl. Not with the amount of firepower that I could hear. So what the hell was going on?

Abandoning my pursuit of the men at the sound of even more gunfire, I decided to cut through a nearby yard. I needed to get a view of what was going on, and following this group was probably just going to lead me to an even larger one before they spread out to search. I needed to get closer.

The lights were off in the house that I came around the corner of, but I could hear people moving around inside. A baby cried, and then a woman hushed it frantically. Then, as if to punctuate the need for quiet, three quick shots rang out. They didn't seem to be directed anywhere near the place, but the sound was enough to set the baby within sobbing once again, and this time they were joined by a couple others from nearby houses.

Edging my way around to the front of the house, I peeked out to the street and stopped at the sight of several more gang members the road ahead of me. Except these guys weren't wearing ABB colors. Instead, they were dressed as members of Empire Eighty-Eight.

The Empire was here? Okay, well that explained where all the shooting was coming from. But wait, were they looking for the same girl that the ABB had been hunting down? Just how special _was_ she?

Before I could even start to come to terms with any of that, a new sight caught my eye from above the running men. Two shapes were flying overhead. Or rather, one shape was carrying the other.

It wasn't until the flying one released the other that I was able to pick out who they were. The flying one was Aegis, from the local Wards team. The other was also a member of the Wards, but one that made a cold, empty feeling settle into my stomach: Shadow Stalker. Sophia was here.

She was also dropping straight toward the unprepared Empire thugs. For a couple of seconds, all I could do was stand there and watch in awe as she picked them apart. Even knowing what I did about who she was and the kind of person she happened to be, I couldn't help but be amazed by how fluid her movements were. She was the kind of badass that I could only dream of someday being.

The thought made me feel even more sick inside, and I started to turn away rather than risk a confrontation when one of the men who should have been down abruptly reached up and stabbed her in the leg. The suddenness of the attack left me in as much surprise as the sound of Sophia's cry of pain did. She was hurt. She was in actual pain.

Still, I stood frozen in indecision for a second too long. The man on the ground and the girl exchanged words before there was a spark of electricity. This time, Sophia actually screamed, a dark and ugly sound that didn't bring me any kind of satisfaction the way I'd thought Sophia being hurt might have. In reality, the sound of the other girl, my former friend, being in pain just made me sick.

Pushing myself away from the house, I started that way at a run. But I had a long distance to cover and the man who had stabbed Sophia had already taken one of her crossbows and shot her with a bolt.

The man tossed the crossbow aside and continued on across the street. I ignored him and ran straight for where the dark-clad girl lay sprawled on her side. Sophia was a bitch, but I couldn't just leave her lying there before at least making sure that she wasn't going to bleed out or anything.

As I drew near, I heard her mumble a curse. I was dropping to my knees behind her to check out how bad things were when Sophia mumbled again, "There's more of them."

More? Eyes wide, I lifted my head and looked around. But there were no more Empire goons nearby. Instead, all I could see, from all the way down the street, was a now-familiar massive shape. The Undersiders and their big 'dog' mount. They were down here too? Did that mean they had come to rescue their other member from this clusterfuck? I caught only a brief glimpse of the animal with three riders before it took off in a different direction.

But I didn't have time to think about that. My focus was on Sophia, who was clearly unconscious by that point. Pulling the bolt from her arm, I cast it aside and then looked at her leg. There was blood everywhere, and for a couple of seconds I panicked. What was I supposed to do now?

First Aid. I had a first aid kit as part of my collection. Summoning it with a thought, I opened the kit and then leaned closer to her wounded leg. Grimacing at the nasty sight, I started to lift the leg to elevate it while groping for the disinfectant in the kit.

Unfortunately, before I could do anything else, a sound _**much**_ louder than the repeated gunshots tore through the air. It sounded almost like a bomb going off. With a yelp, I dropped Sophia's leg and the disinfectant, turning toward the factory where the sound had come from.

It wasn't a bomb after all. Instead, I could see the shattered remains of the factory wall and roof where a gigantic figure now towered over the field. I was staring at a beautiful blonde woman wearing some kind of valkyrie get-up who happened to be almost thirty feet tall. In one hand she carried a long spear, while the other hand held a struggling, shouting, cursing figure wearing some kind of gas mask.

Fenja, from the Empire. Or Menja. I always forgot which was which. And the girl clutched in her hand, was that the Undersider that everyone was so intent on finding? But if it was, why had the rest of the Undersiders already taken off?

I was pretty sure there was something important that I didn't understand about what was going on that would have explained everything really easily, but at the moment I was still completely confused.

And, more importantly, I was apparently sitting right in the middle of the giant woman's path. She started running with the struggling figure still clutched tightly in one hand, every step causing a minor earth quake as she came charging straight toward me.

My eyes widened in what probably would have been a comical fashion if I hadn't been so terrified. Without thinking, I hooked my arms under Sophia's and hauled her up to drag out of the way. For everything that my former friend deserved, being pancaked beneath a giant warrior amazon's foot wasn't one of them. Not for the first time, I wished that I could stick biological matter inside my invisible storage field. Instead, I had to do this the hard way, hurriedly dragging the limp figure while staring at the rapidly approaching giant.

I wasn't going to make it, and even if Fenja (or Menja) had cared enough to step over us, she wasn't paying any attention to where she was going. She was too focused on keeping her hold on the struggling figure in her hand while she sprinted to get away from the factory.

What could I do? What _should_ I do? My mind raced in a nearly blind panic as those heavy, thudding steps drew closer by the second. We were still directly in her path.

It meant nothing. It was stupid and would have accomplished pathetically little. But before the sprinting valkyrie giant could reach us, I dropped Sophia and threw myself over her, covering the other girl's limp, unconscious and bleeding figure with my own body. Stupid, that foot would crush both of us together just as easily as it would crush one of us by ourselves. But covering Sophia's injured form was the only thing I could think of in that panicked second.

Boom. Thud. The next footstep was close enough to knock my teeth together. I braced myself, all-but openly crying as I clung to Sophia's limp body and told myself how stupid I was.

Then... a glowing blue energy shell abruptly appeared around us, and I heard the giant woman curse as she stumbled, the field having caught her descending foot.

Her foot came down on the other side of the field, and I looked up in shock in time to see her change course and run another way down the street. A second later, the blue field faded away.

"What the..." I managed before a new voice spoke up.

"You okay?"

Startled into yelping, I turned that way quickly, and found myself staring at the person who had rescued both me and Sophia from certain squishy demise. Shielder, a member of the local hero group called the Brockton Bay Brigade, stood there looking down at me. His blue hair matched the color of the visor and emblem on his otherwise white bodysuit.

Beside him there was a woman with black hair who wore an outfit that was similar enough to Shielders to mark them as being a part of the same team. Hers was white with wavy black lines. Her own visor was obsidian black to match the lines that adorned her uniform, but her mouth was set in a concerned frown.

"I... umm... thanks..." I managed to say.

"No problem," Shielder replied. "You a new Ward?"

"Uhh, no." I shook my head, feeling the shock of nearly dying settling in on me. "Not really. I umm... Oh I'm gonna be sick."

Fleur knelt beside me, quickly putting a hand on my side. "Take it easy, you're okay. You're all right. What happened to Shadow Stalker?"

Forcing the bile back down, I looked toward Sophia. "Stabbed in the leg... and tasered or something, I think. And he shot her with one of her tranquilizer darts."

"Shit, someone wanted her to stay down." Shielder was already kneeling there to check on her. "She needs some help, but I think she'll be okay."

"What's your name?" Fleur asked me, her calm voice steady enough to keep me from freaking out too much.

"Umm, uhh, M-" I started before catching myself. "Archive. I've been calling myself Archive."

"Archive," Fleur nodded. "That's good. You were very brave, Archive. We saw what you did, what you were willing to do. If we hadn't noticed you dragging Shadow Stalker, we never would have seen her laying there. You saved her life. " Her hand squeezed my arm. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I Ummm... I think so." I settled back and started to breathe a little more easily. "What about Fenja?"

"That was Menja," Fleur corrected gently. "Don't worry, Laserdream and Lady Photon are on it. You just sit and breathe. Take it easy. We've got it from here."

It was true. The gunfire had stopped, and I could see the other members of the Brigade scattered around the factory area, helping more members of the Wards settle things down. Lightstar and Manpower were both visible, herding a group of disarmed ABB troops into a circle.

In the background, I could hear Shielder calling for Panacea to come help Shadow Stalker. Which meant that she would be awake soon. Pushing myself up onto shaking feet, I rose.

"Hey, take it easy," Fleur cautioned. "Are you sure you can stand?"

"I'm not hurt," I promised. "I'll be okay. I just..." Needed to get away, needed to get out of there before they woke up Sophia. I couldn't be around her, couldn't risk it. "I've gotta go."

"Okay, well... be careful." Fleur reached out to squeeze my arm. "I meant what I said, you were very brave to throw yourself on top of her like that."

After swallowing thickly, I nodded before backing away. After staring at the fallen Sophia for a few more seconds I turned and ran the other way.

I hoped that the Brigade could figure out what the hell had been going on tonight, because I still had absolutely no clue. Nor had I really accomplished much by being there.

But hey, at least I didn't throw up.

 **2-07 – Emma**

To say that Bitch was upset to see me riding one of her dogs again would be an understatement. I'd barely slipped off the animal once it came to a stop some distance away from the factory where all the fighting was happening before the sound of rushing footsteps made me spin around in time to see the dog-masked girl coming right up behind me. Before I could say anything, she extended her arms and shoved me hard. I went stumbling back and tripped, landing hard on my backside with a yelp.

"Told you, stay-" The girl made a motion to lunge at my prone form even as her name was shouted. Not willing to just let her land on me, I jumped into my time-freeze. Bitch was frozen in mid-leap, her fist cocked back to punch me the second she landed.

Rolling out of the way and coming back to my feet, I took in a breath while letting time go back to normal. The angry girl landed hard on the ground where I had been, punching down with a fist that hit concrete while continuing her shout. "-off my dog!"

I held my hands up placatingly. "Look, I'm sorry. I just..." Trailing off at the sound of growling, I blinked over to see two _actual_ dogs, a Rottweiler and a German Shepherd stalking closer to me.

Before they could get any closer, however, a heavy black cloud settled in over them, and Grue put himself between me and the other girl. "Bitch, get a grip." He ordered her. "She didn't hurt Angelica." Once Bitch was focused on him, he dismissed the darkness around the dogs, leaving them looking a bit lost and uncertain for a second before they ran to join their mistress.

"Seriously, dude, chill." The girl in the magician's outfit appeared then, extending a hand down toward Bitch to help her up. "We're all on the same side here, remember?" The half-mask left her mouth uncovered, so her easy smile was visible. "One for all and all for kicking ass and making bank."

Glaring at the hand being offered to her briefly, Bitch shook her head and climbed to her feet without the assistance. "No, she's not. She's one of them." Her voice was accusing as she stood there flanked by her two ordinary sized dogs, with the big one, Angelica apparently, standing behind her.

"What, a hero?" The magician turned to give me a considering look for a second before nodding. "Yeah, I guess I should've known that. You do have that dazzling 'rescuing damsels' look."

"It, umm..." I hesitated uncertainly for a second. "That doesn't bother you?"

She shrugged. "Nah. I mean, you could try arresting me if you want, but I have a habit of liking that sort of thing. Besides, fair's fair, so when I get out of it, it'll be my turn to tie you up. And I know some really interesting knots." Somehow, even with her eyes covered, I knew that she had winked at me.

Even as my face grew red to match the color of the lenses that covered my eyes, Grue started to talk. "The point is-" He stopped as the magician's words sank in and gave her a brief double-take before clearing his throat to continue. "Err, the point is, she helped us. She didn't have to, but she did. So calm down, we couldn't just leave her behind back there after she ran right in to help save one of us."

Bitch looked like she wanted to object to the 'one of us' remark, but remained silent. After glaring at me for another moment, she turned away and moved to Angelica. The other two dogs trailed after her.

"Sorry about that," Grue turned to face me. "You didn't deserve that. Thanks for your help, uhh..." He trailed off for a moment before asking, "What do you call yourself, anyway? We never found out."

I blinked a couple times at the question, shifting uncertainly. "Oh, I umm, I never really decided."

It was Regent who spoke next, the renaissance-dressed boy emerging from around the corner of the nearby building. "Didn't decide on a name before running out to play hero? Isn't the name supposed to be pretty important? I mean, how else are they going to know what to name your cereal after?"

He'd lost me with that, and I shook my head. "Cereal?"

His hand waved vaguely. "Yeah, you know, Sugar Frosted MegaHerO's or whatever, the breakfast of champions. The whole reason to be on the other side, all that tasty corporate sponsorship. Can't really get that if you're a villain. Don't get me wrong, no judging. I considered it myself. But I just like my precious Froot Loops too much to risk competing against them." He let out a lamenting sigh. "Oh the hero I could have been if I never listened to that Toucan."

"But," I protested, "I didn't choose to be a hero just to get cereal named after me."

"No?" Regent looked at me for a moment before shrugging. "Well, now **I'm** baffled."

"We'll explain it when you're older." Grue informed him before focusing on me. "No name, huh?"

I shrugged again, a little helplessly. "I'm not very good at coming up with that sort of thing, I guess. Every name I thought of is already taken."

"Oh jeeze, tell me about it." The magician girl sighed while shaking her head. "I go through all the trouble of coming up with the name that perfectly describes how ridiculously amazing I am, and it turns out someone already took it. I mean, the nerve of some people, you know?"

Curious in spite of myself, I asked, "What name did you try to take?"

Her grin was incorrigible. "Legend."

After recovering from a brief choking fit, I stared at her. "What—umm, what name did you go with?"

"Nimue," she replied while tipping her top hat to me. "Just call me Nimue. As in N, I, Mmmm, oooh, aaaayyye." For the last three letters she simply made noises of approval while giving me a thumbs up.

"Nimue," I repeated with a nod. "I'll remember. And uhh, Grue, Regent, Tattletale, and... Bitch." Boy did using that name make me flinch considering how little the other girl clearly thought of me. She gave no reaction however, focused as she was on her animals.

"You really should give yourself a name," Tattletale advised. "Otherwise the Protectorate might just start using another name for you, and good luck changing people's minds about what you want to be called once one thing gets around. Trust me, it's screwed over more than one person."

"Right, I'll umm, keep that in mind," I promised before shifting on my feet. "I guess I should umm, go now?" Shrugging vaguely, I added, "I suppose... next time we might be on opposite sides."

"Don't you worry, teleport-lass," Regent assured me. "We'll take it easy on you, for old time's sake."

I made a face at the name. "Teleport-Lass? Ew. No. You're right, I need to choose a name." Still feeling awkward about just walking away, I stood there uncertainly for another couple of seconds before nodding. "Anyway, thanks for umm, for getting me away from Oni Lee, even if it was a mistake. Good luck with the whole... ummm... villain thing, I guess."

Leaning closer to Grue, Regent stage-whispered. "She really _is_ bad at being a hero."

Flushing at that, I froze time and let the red haze settle over everything. I took another moment to look at the group gathered there before turning on my heel to sprint away.

This was **not** how I'd expected my first night out as a hero to go.

* * *

The next morning was a school day. Actually, it was later the _same_ morning, considering how late it had been when I finally got home. Which was a semantic point that my body made sure to remind me of repeatedly when my alarm went off. I managed to hit snooze twice before Mom came in to flip the lights on, open my blinds, and switch on the stereo that sat on the desk on the other side of the room. Her response to my groan of protest was to pat my bed with a cheerful, "Just think, only two more months of this before you can start sleeping in." Then she stole my pillow on the way out of the room.

Dragging myself out of bed, I yawned while staring at my bedraggled self in the mirror that was attached to my door. Jeeze, I looked like hell. My newly shortened red hair was sticking out in every direction, and there were visible bags under my eyes. Not so long ago, even the sight of myself this way would have freaked me out. _**That**_ would have been the worst part of my day, on par with a national emergency. God, I'd been such a shallow bitch.

Running my hand back through my hair with a sigh at that thought, I grabbed my clothes for the day and headed out to the bathroom to take a long, hot shower. Hopefully that would be enough to wake me up so I didn't fall asleep in class.

After taking care of everything that I needed to in the bathroom and making myself look somewhat presentable, I headed downstairs to fix myself something to eat. I still wasn't feeling bright and chipper, but the shower had helped. As did the sound of the cereal filling the bowl.

"Froot Loops?" Anne asked curiously from where she was sitting at the other side of the table. "Since when do you have those? I thought you were supposed to be a die-hard blueberry bagel girl."

Looking down at the bowl, I flushed a little at the realization of why they had been on my mind before turning to take the milk out of the fridge. "I just had a weird craving, I guess."

Turning her attention back to her computer tablet, Anne shrugged and took a bite of her own toast. "Heard of weirder things, I guess. Like that thing last night, did you hear about it yet?"

Taking my seat at the table, I took a spoonful of cereal while shaking my head absently. "No, what?"

"There was a huge brawl last night," she went on eagerly. "Seriously, like, all the major teams were involved. The Protectorate was fighting Lung while some of the ABB got trounced by Faultline's Crew. Then the rest of the ABB were in some big fight with the Empire until the Wards and the Brigade jumped in on both of them. Even the Undersiders got involved. God knows what **they** thought they were doing."

"The who?" I blinked up at that uncertainly, even as a thought ticked at my brain. "Wait, you mean..."

"You know, those new guys with the big monster dog things," Anne explained. "Well, the PRT says they're dogs anyway. They're the ones that robbed the Ruby Dreams Casino a few weeks ago."

"That's their name!" I exclaimed suddenly, and probably too loudly. I'd been trying to remember what the group was called all last night and it had continually escaped me. Seeing the weird look that Anne gave me after that, I flushed and slumped a little before taking a bite of my cereal. "Err, I was talking to someone at school about the capes around town and we couldn't remember those guys."

Anne gave me a curious look for a second before shrugging. "Whatever. From the sound of things, you won't be forgetting their name for long. First there was that casino thing, and now they're going head to head with the Empire and ABB? Especially if they keep adding new capes."

"They weren't actually fighting them-" Near the end of my sentence I caught myself and pitched my tone to make it sound more like a question. "Were they? That just uhh, seems stupid for such a small group." Belatedly, I caught the last thing she'd said. "Wait, adding new capes?"

Shrugging once more, Anne turned the tablet around. "I dunno about fighting, but they were there. And yeah, turns out they already got two new recruits. See?"

She held the tablet up for me to look at the online article that she'd been reading, and I found myself staring at a perfectly clear photograph of myself in costume. I was front and center on the page seated on Angelica's back alongside Tattletale and Nimue. It had clearly been taken just after I let myself be pulled up onto the dog. Under the picture was the title of the article: Rookie Villains Join Undersiders.

Yelping, I grabbed the tablet out of her hand, my eyes wide as I blurted, "What?!" My eyes scanned the article quickly. Unknown cape, some kind of teleporter who created a red starburst pattern wherever she appeared or disappeared, new member of the Undersiders alongside some kind of magician cape.

"Uhh, are you okay?" Anne frowned at me. "You look kinda pale, Woody."

"Pale?" Mom entered the kitchen and reached out to put a hand on my forehead. "You do feel a little warm. I thought you just stayed up too late. Do you feel sick?"

"I... I..." Yes, I wanted to say. I felt sick because my attempt to be a super hero had failed so spectacularly that now everyone thought I was a villain, that I was actually a member of the Undersiders. Who had taken the picture? Just how good of a camera had they used? That photograph was so good we might as well have posed for it.

Finally, I shook my head. "I'll be okay." There was no way that I could stay home today. If I did, I'd end up being babied by my mother all day, and I'd never be able to take care of this. If there _was_ any way to take care of it. What was I supposed to do, contact the Protectorate and say, 'Actually, I'm not a villain'?

Mom still sounded doubtful. "All right, but if you start feeling worse, I want you to let the office know, okay? I'll come pick you up. Actually, speaking of which." She looked toward my sister.

"I'll take her to school." Anne rolled her eyes and straightened. "Hurry up and finish your Froot Loops, Fruit Loop."

I'd lost my appetite, but I ate mechanically while scanning the article, feeling the food drop into my uneasily rolling stomach. My mind was reeling. Member of the Undersiders. The article linked to a topic on PHO, where I could see the forum members debating what my name was and what the limits of my power were. There was already several pages of discussion about whether I could take other people with me when I teleported, what the red starburst pattern that showed up when I used my power was, and how far I could teleport. A few people claimed to have seen me appear for brief seconds at various points along the route that I had taken to reach Nimue, and one person even had a much lower quality picture that had been taken of me stopping to get a drink out of the water fountain, clearly taken hurriedly from a cell phone.

Villain. They thought I was a villain. And why shouldn't they? After all, I had been running around with the Undersiders all night without even trying to stop them.

My personal lamentations faded however, as I noticed something else that was mentioned through the topic. "Wait, the Protectorate fought Lung at Saint Augustine's Hospital?"

Anne nodded. "Yeah, the ABB took over the hospital for awhile before Faultline's Crew got rid of them."

"Saint Augustine's?" Mom turned away from the sink at that. "Isn't that the hospital that Taylor's staying at?"

I nodded mutely. Suddenly I didn't care at all about my own problems. "Never mind about the ride, Anne. I can walk, I need the fresh air."

"Err, you're turning down a ride?" Anne frowned at that. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'll be fine," I grabbed my bowl and went to rinse it out. "Like I said, need the fresh air to wake up."

Mom hesitated, looking like she wanted to object but wasn't sure how to tell me _not_ to get some exercise. "Okay, but like I said..."

"If I feel any worse, I'll tell the nurse." I dutifully promised before heading upstairs to grab my backpack. Instead of my books, however, I shoved the costume inside. I had no intention of going to school. My destination was the hospital.

I had to find out if Taylor was okay, and what exactly had happened there last night. Everything else could wait.

 **Interlude 2A – Prism**

The squeak of a chair against linoleum startled Samantha Rowen out of her uneasy and uncomfortable sleep. The blonde girl jolted awake before immediately flinching at the pain in her neck that had grown from sleeping upright in the cheap medical wing waiting room chair.

Wincing when he saw that the squeak of the chair had woken her, Nolan Kelleher, better known to the world at large as Dauntless, winced. "Sorry about that," he apologized while settling his body into the seat with a groan. "Just had to get off my feet." His voice, as always, was a casual drawl that was at odds with the serious look in his tired gaze that was visible through the slits in his Spartan style helmet.

"It's okay." Samantha slowly pushed herself up and out of her own seat, grimacing first at the soreness and cramps in her muscles, then at the smell of the sweat-soaked costume that she wore as Prism. After everything that had happened the night before, she had come to the medical wing of the Brockton Bay Protectorate Headquarters, their floating fortress on the water, without showering or changing. Stupid, in retrospect, but she couldn't stand to go anywhere while they had injured members of the team.

With that in mind, while cracking her neck, she asked, "What time is it, anyway?" After yawning, she added, "And how are Armsmaster and Assault doing?"

"About half past six," Nolan answered while nodding toward the early morning light coming in through the window at the end of the hall. "Assault's still sleeping off the surgery. As for Armsmaster... eh, you know the big guy," Dauntless replied. "He's just pissed off that he's been sidelined. Doctor's orders have him locked in bed for now. Most they'll let him do is design with a sketch pad. He wants them to bring in Panacea and get him back on his feet."

"I take it she doesn't have any more ambrosia ready yet?" Samantha winced while thinking of just how irritated and short-tempered Armsmaster could get if he wasn't allowed to leave his hospital bed.

"Nah," Dauntless shook his head while plucking the helmet off and setting it in his lap. This deep in the medical wing of their headquarters, there wasn't anyone around who didn't have enough clearance to see their faces. It was kind of a necessity if they were going to be treated. "Apparently Lady Photon and Laserdream got hit pretty hard when Menja was making her escape with the ABB Tinker. Plus Clockblocker got nailed by Crusader. Those injuries plus the hit that Shadow Stalker took, and a few civilians that got shot in their own homes pretty much drained the kid's entire supply. They said it'll take her time to recover."

Samantha nodded in understanding. The Brigade and the Protectorate worked together fairly often, enough that she knew a good bit about the girl's power. It allowed her to dissolve any nonliving matter that she could hold in her hands into a sort of pudding-like substance. The denser the object, the more resulting material she received. The new substance itself was a blank slate that would accomplish nothing other than tasting pretty good. But if the girl touched and focused on it, she could 'attune' the stuff to heal a variety of injuries or illnesses. The downside was that the blank slate stuff went bad within a few days of being created. Worse, once the stuff was attuned to a specific injury or illness, that time dropped to only a few minutes. So it was impossible to stock up on or ship the stuff anywhere.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have fallen asleep and left you to deal with this stuff." It was _her_ job, as Armsmaster's second in command, to handle all of this fallout.

Shaking his head once more, Nolan gave her an easy smile. "Don't stress. It was a long night for everybody. I got to the fight last, so I was still mobile."

"I take it Sam's in with Ethan?" She asked while starting to pace, her mind working through the various problems that they had to deal with. Now that she was awake, she was going to have to get to work.

The jokes about herself and Battery each having the same first name had been run through the gauntlet so many times by that point that Nolan didn't even bother to take a swing. He just nodded. "Yeah, docs said he'll be fine. They had to do some surgery to deal with the burns, but he was awake for a few minutes before the drugs knocked him out and seemed okay enough. He asked them if they could only heal half his face until Halloween comes so he can go as some old Batman villain."

That sounded like Ethan, and Samantha smiled briefly. "What about Rory?"

"He was heading out to get some real food last I knew." Nolan grimaced while rubbing his leg where he'd been gouged heavily by one of Lung's claws. "Made him promise to bring me back a cheeseburger. That was awhile ago, he should be getting back pretty soon."

"Right," Samantha rubbed a hand against the exposed part of her face before recoiling again at the smell. People repeatedly said that she was one of the few that completely pulled off the skintight costume look. At the moment, she was really wishing that she could have been one of the capes whose uniform consisted of looser clothing. At least sweating in that wasn't quite as bad. "I think I'm going to hit the showers and change while I have the chance. Let me know if anything else happens?"

"Will do," Nolan nodded before adding a little slyly, "And don't worry, I won't let Armsy know that you took a shower instead of coming up with a way to bust him out of medical house arrest."

"Hey, if he asks, I'll just point out that I do my best thinking in the shower." Samantha patted Nolan on the shoulder before heading out to get cleaned up. She'd take her time and enjoy it, because judging from the pounding they had taken the night before, she wasn't likely to enjoy much else today.

* * *

"So, do... any of you have anything to say for yourself as far as far as last night's utter fiasco goes?" PRT Director Emily Piggot's hard glare was directed at the conscious and relatively uninjured members of the local Protectorate two hours later. Without Armsmaster and Assault, that meant they were down to Prism, Dauntless, Battery, and Triumph standing in the woman's office at PRT headquarters. Battery hadn't wanted to leave her husband, but Ethan had apparently woken up enough to assure her that he would be fine. So she was here, but if Samantha was reading the other woman's body language right, she was also about a hair's breadth away from physically choking the PRT director. Especially considering the fact that they had left the Protectorate building where Ethan and Colin were specifically to cater to Director Piggot's dislike of actually going out to the floating base.

Rather than risk that kind of situation, Prism chose to get the director's attention on her instead. "Yes, there are some things that we should discuss about it. But before we do, I think something needs to be said." She waited until the woman's eyes were focused on her before continuing. "We are not here to be dressed down by you. We are not your team of Wards, not even Triumph. If you want to discuss things like adults and figure out what we can do to improve things the next time Lung goes on a rampage, then by all means, let's discuss it. But if all you're interested in doing is playing the blame game and talking at us like we're children, then we have other work to do."

For a long moment, Director Piggot glared at her. Samantha knew the woman didn't like her. Piggot hated the fact that someone she saw as a spoiled brat who wasn't yet twenty-one years old was second in command of the city's Protectorate team. But Armsmaster had chosen her, and the PRT had no say over those decisions. Prism herself had been uncertain about even moving to this city after she had graduated from the New York Wards a little over two years earlier. But Legend, her sponsor and mentor through the Wards experience, had asked her to do it as a favor for him so that he wouldn't feel quite as bad asking _their_ local hero, Miss Militia, to transfer over to New York as his own second in command.

She was glad she'd done it, now. Brockton Bay, for all its faults, had become home quickly enough. Even in situations like this, where their efforts against the local criminal capes didn't go so well.

Finally, after a long stare that neither woman backed away from, Director Piggot made a dismissive noise. She tapped at three keys on the keyboard before using one hand to turn the monitor around so that they could see it. "All right then, 'like adults', explain to me why every local new source this morning is opening with articles like this."

Glancing to the screen, Samantha winced inwardly first at the picture of herself kneeling over an injured Armsmaster to check on his condition, then again at the bolded caption beneath that which read, 'Protectorate lose brawl with Lung at hospital.'

"We didn't lose," Triumph pointed out. "Lung retreated before anyone could finish the fight."

"He didn't retreat," Piggot snapped. "He found out that the Empire was stealing his tinker and took off to save her. We're just lucky he didn't reach them before his power ran out, or we'd be picking up even more pieces of the city than we already are. Do you have the slightest idea how much money it's going to cost to put that hospital back into working order? Hell, there's still patients **missing**. Some of them got scared and ran away or wandered off while they were trying to evacuate. One of which was supposed to be physically incapable of moving on her own! If _all_ of them aren't brought back safe and sound, do you know what kind of liability that opens the PRT up to?"

Dauntless shook his head. "We didn't exactly choose where the fight went."

"Your job," Piggot informed him with a jab of her finger, "was to move the fight **away** from that hospital before it got that bad. Your job was to contain Lung's people and stop them from spreading out too much. Do you know why we don't have a whole pile of corpses to deal with? Faultline and her group. God only knows what the hell they were doing at that hospital in the first place. But if they hadn't been there, those headlines wouldn't be talking about you losing a brawl. They'd be talking about how you let dozens, if not hundreds of people die because you were too busy losing said brawl to keep those gang members **out** of that hospital."

Before any of them could respond to that, the woman continued. "And lest we forget, the other major story of what happened last night while the Protectorate was busy losing to a single parahuman: the mayor's niece was kidnapped. Would any of you like to be the next one to field one of his phone calls on _that_ particular subject?"

"Oh would you just shut up already?" Battery finally snapped before Prism could respond to that. "Were you out there fighting Lung and his bullshit power? Were you out with the PRT and police squads that were taking back the hospital? Then shut up about it. Lung went toe to toe with Leviathan and survived. There were only six of us, two of whom are still in the hospital. You want that son of a bitch contained next time he ramps up? Then you figure out how to contain him."

Spinning on her heel, Battery stalked through the office door, slamming it behind her with enough force to rattle the pictures and awards on the walls.

Piggot shook her head and sighed after that. "The thing she needs to learn is-"

"No." Samantha pointed a finger at the woman. "What _you_ need to learn is that you may be the big chief head honcho in charge of the PRT around here, but you don't put on a costume. You don't go out there and risk your life. You don't have a husband in the severe burn ward because he went out to risk his life. And here's the thing. If push comes to shove, who do you think the higher ups are going to move out of a city if you can't get along with the capes here, all the people with powers that you've pissed off because you can't get over your fucking issues, or you?"

Turning on her own heel then, she strode to the door with a gesture toward Triumph and Dauntless. "Come on, we've got more important things to take care of."

* * *

"I take it you're feeling better now?" A short time later, Samantha poked her head into Armsmaster's hospital room to find the man standing and adjusting the parts of his costume that hadn't been too badly damaged.

He gave the halberd a practice swing before nodding with satisfaction. "Yeah, Panacea made it by with some of her ambrosia finally. About time, I was starting to think that kid was taking the week off."

Rolling her eyes, Samantha pointed out mildly, "You were only confined to your bed for a couple hours, you know."

"Too long," he insisted before starting for the door. "Tell me where we stand."

"Well," she considered for a moment. "Piggot might be organizing a lynch mob for me personally, but other than that..." Samantha sighed. "Not much better. We still don't have any idea what set everything off last night. We don't even know who took the mayor's niece, just that whoever it was smacked the girl's father hard enough to knock him out for hours, and her mother never heard a thing."

"So we really have no idea where she is, who took her, or why?" Armsmaster didn't sound happy.

"Nope," Samantha admitted before sighing once more. "Nor do we know much about the new capes that showed up last night."

"What details do we have?" Colin asked while stopping at the main desk to scrawl his signature on an offered pad accepting his responsibility for dismissing himself from their care.

Holding up the computer pad that she had ready, Samantha showed him the picture taken of the girls on the back of one of Hellhound's mutated animals. "Two new villains. We have no idea what the one in the magician outfit can do. According to some eyewitnesses, she used a wand to blind someone and then ahhh, opened her sleeve and a bunch of scarves flew out to tie him up. There's a couple other similar reports from the last week or so. According to them, the girl said her name is Nimue."

"The Lady of the Lake," Colin murmured thoughtfully before nodding to the picture. "What about the other girl?" After asking, he started to walk down the hall once more, heading for his lab.

Samantha shrugged at that. "No idea what name she's going by. Seems to be a teleporter. We think she's limited to a relatively short distance, considering the fact that she kept popping up around town on a course that we plotted as being straight toward the factory where she met up with this Nimue girl and Tattletale. As far as we can tell, it's not that long of a distance, only a few blocks at most, but definitely not limited by line of sight. And she can cover a lot of ground quickly by teleporting one time after another. She can't, however, teleport with anyone else. At least we're pretty sure she can't. That's the only way Tattletale showing up with Hellhound's dog makes sense."

Nodding slowly as he stared at the picture, Colin finally spoke. "All right, we'll keep an eye on them. The Undersiders are small-time thugs. The Wards should be able to handle anything they do while we focus on Dinah Alcott." He looked up then. "What about the third new cape?"

"According to Shielder and Fleur, she goes by Archive. Powers are completely unknown. Apparently she left a first aid kit behind, but they said they'd give it back to her when they see her again."

"One on our side, then?" He sounded hopeful.

She nodded. "The way they tell it, she threw herself over Shadow Stalker when it looked like Menja was going to step on them."

Stopping briefly to glance at her as if that surprised even him, Colin considered. "Okay, make sure everyone knows to extend an invitation to the Wards to this Archive whenever she pops up again. If the Brigade doesn't grab her first, that is."

"Got it." Samantha nodded before hesitating. "You know Lung's gonna escalate again, and soon. The Empire stole his bomb tinker. He's gonna be out for blood."

Nodding, Colin stopped outside his lab. "Yeah. I have a few ideas about that, but I need time. Can you handle things for a few hours while I get busy?"

She smiled slightly at that. "Sure, what else are subordinates for? I'll keep a lid on things while you do your tinkering."

"Thank you," he grunted the words absently before stepping through the door into his domain. "With any luck, the next time Lung shows up, we'll have a way of dealing with him."

"I hope so," Samantha said quietly. "Because whatever her other faults, Piggot was right about one thing. We got our asses kicked last night."

"Next time," Armsmaster assured her with the confidence of a man who already had many ideas of how to make his statement factual, "things are going to be different."

 **Interlude 2B – Othala**

"How did you lose your eye?"

The voice, coming after a long silence, startled Vanessa out of half-asleep state. She took a moment to adjust herself in the comfortable armchair before self-consciously raising a hand to the patch that she wore on the left side of her face. In the field, she let her hair cover the patch so that it wasn't quite as obvious. But she had pulled the hair back after they'd come in from retrieving the girl from her home.

She'd gotten a little sleep in the hours that had passed since they had abducted the child. But Kaiser wanted her or Rune to take as many of the shifts as possible, and the other girl had school to attend.

"You know most people would consider asking that to be rude," she pointed out while sitting straighter.

Across the room, Dinah Alcott lay half-buried under the blankets, watching her with a curious expression. Rather than look abashed at the remark, she simply replied, "Most people think kidnapping is pretty rude too. I thought we were already past social norms."

Biting her lip, Vanessa went quiet for a moment before standing up. "You heard what Kaiser said. He needs your help to fix this city. Drastic times call for drastic measures."

"I heard." the twelve-year old confirmed with a simple nod before sitting up in bed. She crawled to the end and hopped off, moving to open the mini fridge before pulling out the carton of juice that was inside. After carefully pouring some into one of the plastic cups that were provided, she looked back toward Vanessa and lifted the bottle questioningly. "You want some?"

"Did your power tell you I would?" Vanessa was only half-kidding. Honestly, the idea of precogs freaked her out a bit. What did that say about free will and all that?

"No," Dinah replied quietly while holding the bottle. "I don't like to use my power. It hurts too much."

Vanessa nodded. "Thinker headache." A moment later she added, "And sure, I'd like some juice."

After pouring the second glass, Dinah crossed the room and offered the cup to the other girl. Once it was taken, she took a gulp from her own juice before pointing out, "You never answered the question."

"It's still rude." Vanessa carefully sipped from the cup while watching the younger girl.

Dinah shrugged absently and returned to put the juice in the fridge. "I'm still kidnapped." She rooted around inside briefly before coming out with a pair of plastic wrapped danishes. Holding one up toward the older girl until Vanessa nodded, she tossed it that way, then sat down on the bed to open her own.

Catching the tossed danish, Vanessa carefully unwrapped it while remaining silent. Finally, she cleared her throat. "It has to do with how I got my own powers. Most people consider that to be a very personal subject, so I guess I'm not used to people actually asking about it." When this was met with a blank stare, she conceded, "You have a point though, we did kidnap you. So I guess we can talk about it."

Taking a bite of her danish, Dinah smiled before tucking her legs beneath herself on the bed. "You give super powers to other people, right? Can you use them on yourself?"

Vanessa shook her head. "No, just other people that I can touch. And only one power to each person."

"That must be really useful," Dinah mused briefly before taking a sip of her juice. "Kinda sucks that you can't use it on yourself though. Doesn't that make you pretty vulnerable?"

"It can," Vanessa agreed after nibbling the end of her danish. "But Victor takes care of me."

"He's your boyfriend?" Dinah asked curiously before balling the wrapper of her finished danish up and tossing it into the nearby trashcan. She took a couple of napkins from the table to wipe her hands off.

"No," Vanessa took another nibble of her pastry. "He's my husband."

"Husband?" Dinah looked surprised at that. "How ummm, how old are you then?"

Smiling faintly, Vanessa replied, "I'm eighteen. I married Victor a year and a half ago."

Frowning, Dinah balled the sticky napkins up in her hands. "But I thought you couldn't get married before you were eighteen. You married him when you were sixteen?"

"You can get married that young if you have your parents' permission." Vanessa explained quietly.

Dinah absently tore the napkins into little scraps. "Your parents were okay with you marrying him when you were still in school?"

Shaking her head at that, Vanessa replied, "I dropped out of school. Took my GED. And they were okay with it because it was their idea. Or," she corrected, "It was Kaiser's idea, and they accepted it."

"It was Kaiser's idea that you get married?" Dinah sounded confused.

"Well," Vanessa adjusted herself in the chair and hesitated briefly. "Really, Victor was supposed to marry my cousin. That was what our yacht trip was about."

"Yacht trip?" Dinah's head tilted curiously before she took the last gulp of her orange juice.

Nodding, Vanessa smiled. "Yeah, it was supposed to be just Lauren and Preston at first."

"Preston?" If anything, Dinah looked even more confused. "I thought his name was Victor."

Wincing inwardly at her blunder, Vanessa coughed. Surely it wasn't that big of a deal. After all, Kaiser had allowed the girl to see his face. "That's his codename now. I knew him as Preston first. Anyway, the two of them were basically betrothed. Preston did something that really impressed Kaiser, so he was allowed to marry into the family. The yacht thing was supposed to be a chance for them to get to know each other. It was a three week trip."

"But they didn't go by themselves?" Dinah was watching her intently, as if hanging on her words.

"No, Lauren wanted me to go with them. She uhh, she wasn't sure how she felt about Preston. She barely knew him, and she wasn't sure about being alone with him for three weeks."

Dinah coughed then. "Wait, how old were you? What were you gonna do about it?"

"Fourteen," Vanessa admitted with a shrug. "She wanted company in case things didn't work out. It wasn't about protecting her, it was about if they didn't get along, she wanted someone to talk to. We were friends ever since she used to babysit me. So I went. The three of us were alone on the ocean for almost a month. It was one of the most fun times I've ever had. And Preston did fall in love with her."

"Did she fall in love with him?" Dinah asked. When Vanessa nodded, she hesitated before adding, "Was she the only one on the boat that fell in love with him?"

Flushing at that, Vanessa looked down for a moment before answering quietly. "No. I was younger, and I wasn't the one that was promised to him, but I still... I still liked him. During that trip, he was just so..." She trailed off briefly, searching for the right word. "So heroic. So daring. And he made me feel special, even though I wasn't supposed to be there. Maybe he was doing it just to impress Lauren, I don't know. Either way, he made me feel really good about myself."

"What happened then?" Dinah was laying on her stomach across the bed by that point, watching her.

Instead of answering at first, Vanessa looked away for a few seconds to collect herself. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter. "There was a gathering of the families, a party to celebrate Lauren and Preston's engagement. Everyone was happy and there was so much food." She swallowed uneasily. "But then a bunch of niggers attacked us. They were part of an old gang, one that doesn't exist anymore since Kaiser and Purity wiped them out. They umm... they found out that some of the most important members of the clans were there, so they came to kill them and anyone else they could."

Dinah's voice was hushed. "Is that what happened to your eye?"

Vanessa gave a little jerk of a nod. "Yes. There were powers going off everywhere. Guns, fire, lasers, blood... I saw one of my friends get punched by someone with super strength. His fist went through her skull. When he took it out, he had some of her... her..." Shaking slightly, she swallowed. "Sorry, I shouldn't say that with you. You're just a kid. I mean, the point is, there was a lot going on. And one guy, he was a big nigger, he hit me really hard. He knocked me down when I was trying to hide, and he threatened to..." Catching herself, she shook her head once more and carried on, skipping details. "Preston was looking for Lauren, but he couldn't find her in all the confusion. He found me though, and he attacked the guy that was trying to hurt me. He tried to save me, but the guy... he hurt Preston. He hurt him and he held him down while he used his knife to... to cut my eye. He told me Preston wasn't strong enough to save me, that he was going to carve both of them out while Preston watched."

Swallowing hard, Vanessa felt the ghostly memory of the pain from that moment. "That's when I got my power, my power to make other people stronger. He told me that Preston wasn't strong enough, so I got the power to fix that. And Preston killed him."

"He saved you, but only after you gave him the power to do it." Dinah observed.

Vanessa nodded. "Yeah, but it was too late for Lauren. One of the others, they killed her. Burned her body so bad she wasn't even recognizable. So, that was it for their marriage."

The younger girl was quiet for a few seconds before speaking up carefully, "But he still had to have his 'in' with the family, and you were already in love with him."

"It's not as bad as it sounds," Vanessa claimed. "We waited a year before even talking about it. I had to learn about my power. And Preston got his in the meantime. Then Kaiser brought it up again and... well, there was no reason not to. My parents approved it as soon as I was sixteen. So I dropped out of school and got married. Now we're partners. We do almost everything together. We're good at working with each other. My powers compliment his really well. We're both flexible."

There was silence from the other girl for so long that Vanessa looked up to make sure she hadn't fallen asleep. But Dinah was just laying there watching her with a rather intense expression. Feeling unnerved by that, she asked, "What?"

Slowly, the younger girl pushed herself off of the bed, walking over to her before extending a hand to squeeze Vanessa's. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I thought I had it bad, being kidnapped by monsters. But I was only kidnapped a few hours ago. You've grown up with them. They're your family, your friends, everyone you know. And how can you recognize the monsters when they're the ones that make you food, that teach you how to read, that drive you to school, that tuck you in when you're a kid?"

Staring at the younger girl for a moment, Vanessa yanked her hand back. She opened her mouth to retort as a flush of embarrassment crossed her face. Before she could say anything, the door opened.

"And how are we doing this morning?" Kaiser asked. He was immaculately dressed, as usual.

Quickly, Vanessa replied, "Fine. We're just talking." She had no idea why she suddenly felt as though Kaiser knowing what Dinah had been saying would be a bad thing.

"Good, good." Smiling generously, the man crossed the room before sitting at the chair in front of Dinah's bed, looking toward where the girl was still standing near Vanessa. "I'm going to have pizza brought in this afternoon, and when she gets here Rune will help you study. She'll be a good tutor for you. Until then, you can watch cartoons or whatever you like. There's just one thing we need to take care of first."

Dinah stared at the man before slowly walking over to sit down on her bed, watching him carefully. "You want to ask me a question. You want me to use my power. But it's gonna hurt." Her voice went up plaintively at the end. "It really hurts when I use it."

"You'll get better at it, I promise." The man assured her. "Thinker powers, especially ones that are as strong as I believe yours are, always come with drawbacks. Exercise it enough and you'll be able to use your gift more without getting those headaches as much. But in any case, right now we have a shortcut. That's why Othala is here, after all. Well, one reason. Her company is another."

"Othala?" Dinah glanced toward Vanessa before looking back at the man. "You mean you think one of her powers could help?"

The man's smile broadened. "See, I knew you were a smart girl, Dinah. Very smart. Yes, I believe that if Othala grants you her healing ability, it will help ease the headaches somewhat. We'll try two questions first, all right? Just two, and then let Othala use her power to give you some healing."

Still trembling a little, Dinah nodded hesitantly, but didn't speak. It looked as if she realized that she didn't really have a choice.

"Good girl," Kaiser smiled patiently before leaning back. "Now, we spoke a little bit last night about how you believe your power works. So, for the first question, I just want to ask... Presuming that the same countermeasures we discussed last night continue, what are the odds that Lung will find out where Bakuda is being kept within the next three days?"

The girl's eyes screwed shut briefly and she fidgeted on the bed uncomfortably for a moment before answering. "Thirteen percent if you don't change anything about what you're doing with her." As soon as she finished speaking, Dinah gave a soft gasp of discomfort.

"Good, that gives us time to work with." Kaiser nodded approvingly. "Thank you. One more question then. This is a drug that my people have been developing." He took a small vial from his pocket and held it up. "What are the odds that its contents will work to knock Lung out when he's powered up?"

Cringing in pain, Dinah took a moment to answer. "Twenty-six percent if he's at the power he usually fights at."

"I assume the earlier it's used, the better the chances are." Kaiser mused. When the younger girl whimpered, he held a hand up to her. "Don't worry, that wasn't a question." Nodding to Vanessa then, he said, "Othala, if you wouldn't mind?"

Obediently, Vanessa slid off her chair and moved to sit next to Dinah. She lifted a hand and set it on the other girl's arm, providing her with the healing part of her gift.

Immediately, Dinah let out a long sigh of relief. "That's... that's better." She sounded surprised.

"Excellent." Kaiser's smile grew. "I'll have some more questions for you later, Dinah. But you take care of yourself for now. And mind Rune when she comes to give you your lessons." He rose from the chair, tucking the vial away before starting for the door without another word, his mind already elsewhere.

Once he was gone, Dinah spoke again, her voice a soft whisper. "Thank you for healing me."

"It's what I do," Vanessa replied, feeling uncomfortable.

After another few seconds of silence, the girl whispered again. "I asked another question."

"What?" Vanessa looked at her, squinting. "What do you mean you asked another question?"

"I asked another question, before he asked me the second one." Dinah explained. "One for myself."

Frowning, Vanessa hesitated before speaking again. "What question?"

"I asked what the odds were that he'll ever let me go home." Dinah informed her, her voice very quiet.

She didn't explain what answer she'd gotten, and Vanessa didn't ask. She didn't need to. Kaiser had shown the girl his face.

She would never be allowed to go home again.


	3. Arc 3: Gathering Thoughts

**3-01 – Madison**

At school the next morning, all everyone was talking about was what had happened the night before. Apparently the skirmish between the Brigade, the Empire, and the ABB had resulted in thirty two arrests. Even one cape, Stormtiger from the Empire, had been taken in.

As far as fatalities went, the news people were saying that thirteen Empire soldiers had been killed, compared to eleven ABB members. Several more from both sides were in the hospital.

No capes, as far as anyone was aware, had been killed. It was the unpowered mooks, the ones who went out with guns and acted as targets who bore the brunt of the casualties in these battles. That wasn't a fun feeling, of course. Yet at least they had chosen the situation. The idea that twenty-four people had died would have been harsh enough, even if they were the bad guys. But it didn't end there. Three innocent people had been killed as well by stray shots. Three civilians who had done nothing wrong aside from happen to live in houses that were caught in the crossfire or as backdrops to the bullets that the ABB were sending out toward the Empire from their elevated positions.

The news ran a front page story on all three of the civilians who had been killed, including pictures of each. One was an elderly gardener named Lonzo Fraga, while the other two were a new mother named Marlena Cathryn, and Sierra Kiley, a college student with wild red dreadlocks.

Panacea had apparently done everything she could for the people who had been hurt, but had been unable to save those three. There was an image in the paper of the Brigade's healer tilting a boy's head back to pour the contents of one of her vials down his throat, with a caption that explained that the boy was Bryce Kiley, Sierra's younger brother.

Unfortunately, the bad news didn't stop there. Not only had the Protectorate failed to capture Lung, but some of his men had even taken over the hospital. The hospital where Taylor was, to be exact. Hearing _that_ in the middle of World Issues class had been shocking. It had been all I could do not to sprint straight out of the room to ensure that the girl I had spent so long torturing wasn't any worse off than she already had been. Only the realization that the hospital would **never** tell me anything no matter what I said, and that I had no chance of getting within a hundred feet of Taylor kept me in my seat.

Even then, however, I felt an ache in my stomach throughout the period and couldn't really pay attention to what Mr. Gladly was saying about capes influencing the world. It was background noise.

As soon as the class was over, I was on my feet and starting for the door, mind already focused on how I might be able to find out more about what had happened at the hospital without causing problems.

Before I could leave, however, Mr. Gladly stepped into my path. He wore the same easy, confiding smile as always, like he was just one of the guys rather than an adult. He was a lot of student's favorite teacher. For a time, he had been mine. Hell, some of my old friends actually had crushes on the guy. They assumed I did, but I'd never really felt that way about him. Guess he wasn't my type. Not that I really had a type. I'd gone on a couple of dates, even had a boyfriend for a few weeks. But none of it really seemed to matter that much, and I only dated because it seemed to be expected. None of the boys that I went out with really _clicked_ with me, even before Taylor was hurt, and I wasn't sure why.

Still, academically, I could tell why people would crush on Mr. Gladly. He did have a nice smile, even if the sight of him made me think about how often he had ignored everything we did to Taylor. The price of our popularity had been Taylor's soul. But we weren't the only ones who willingly paid that price. The man in front of me had to have known at least some of what was going on, and had done nothing to stop or even discourage us. No one in this school had lifted a finger.

To be perfectly clear, my actions were my fault. I made my choices and they were wrong. I did... evil things, and that evil was something I was going to have to make up for. No one made me do the things to Taylor that I chose to do. But no one forced Mr. Gladly to ignore what we were doing either. I wasn't angry with him because of my actions, I was angry with him because of his **lack** of action.

"Hey there, Maddy, everything all right? You seemed a little bit out of it during class, like you weren't really all with us." The man continued to smile at me as if he had no possible idea what might be wrong. I wondered, briefly, if he even realized that the hospital he'd mentioned as being attacked by Lung's people during our class discussion happened to be the one where Taylor was.

"Bet you're missing your friends, huh?" He made a face before sighing. "Horrible situation."

In the old days, I would have stood there and made small talk with the man just to stay on his good side. And so that he would think he was on mine. Hell, he would have written me a note excusing me for being late to my next class, even though I still had lunch to eat. He'd give me the note anyway so that I could go to lunch and then get back whenever I wanted. He'd done it before, after all.

Now, I just looked away and mumbled something about being late before stepping around him.

"Madison," he caught my arm as I started to pass. "If anything... else is wrong, you can tell me."

His words made me stop more than the hand on my arm did. I turned to look at him, using a hand to brush my shoulder length brown hair back while meeting his gaze. Deliberately, I tugged my arm free of his hand. "You know," I started while keeping my voice quiet so that no one else would hear. "You're so busy making sure that everyone **likes** you, that you have no idea that none of us **respect** you."

I walked past the man before he could react to that. Not that he did or said anything to stop me. When I glanced back as the door was closing behind me, he was still standing there.

For the moment, I put the man out of my mind and headed not for the cafeteria, but for the computer lab. I could have searched on my phone, but I wanted privacy and quiet.

There were only two other people in the computer lab when I made my way to a station there, both of them at the other end of the room, focused on some game they had downloaded. I slid myself into the seat and double clicked to bring up the browser. Then I sat there doing nothing for a few long seconds, because the idea of 'look up information on the computer' had seemed really good at the time, but in practice I wasn't sure exactly how to go about finding anything as important as this.

Finally, I typed in a search for the hospital name and limited the results to the past twenty-four hours. That got me a bunch of stories and blog entries about what had happened last night, most of which involved people debating about why Faultline's Crew had stuck their necks out to fight the ABB.

One of the results linked to the Parahumans Online message boards, and I scanned the thread there in hopes that an unofficial source might say more than the regular articles. Mostly I was disappointed, considering everyone there seemed to be either fishing for information (just like me) or regurgitating the same story as everyone else. There were a few notes that at least one patient had gone missing for awhile, though other notes said that they'd found everyone so I still had no idea.

Eventually, I had to tell myself that I still wasn't going to find anything important until later in the day. If anything had happened to Taylor, I would find out about it eventually. All I could do for now was hope that I was being needlessly paranoid. They would have said something if any of the patients had been hurt or anything, right? They had to.

To distract myself, I clicked over to check on the thread that they had going on to detail the Empire Eighty-Eight versus ABB fight, and was surprised to find a single rather blurry photograph of myself taken at a range. I was kneeling over Shadow Stalker at the time in my extremely cheap version of a 'costume.' There was some kind of debate going on about whose side I was on, and some of the posters had pointed out the Kenaz rune on my windbreaker as an indication that I had to be with the Empire. Apparently the fact that they couldn't really tell what the rune was in the shape of with that blurry picture coupled with the fact that the Empire employed at least two female capes with runic imagery (one of whom was actually _**called**_ Rune) led them to be absolutely certain that there was a connection.

Then I saw another post that made my eyes widen. It was by Shielder, and there was even a little 'verified cape' annotation that proved that this was really the Brockton Bay Brigade member.

► **Shielder** (Verified Cape) (Brockton Bay Brigade)

replied on September 11th, 2011:

Hola, seen a lot of debate here and wanted to weigh in. The girl in the picture calls herself Archive, and is definitely not a member of the Empire. She's one of the good ones, people. Let's try not to scare her off, huh? As for the rune that's been pointed out, I described what I could see to Seraph and she says it's a Kenaz rune. You can find that here for reference and comparison. It's a rune of knowledge, guys, not some old Nazi symbol or whatever.

Hopefully that eases some of the conspiracy theories. And Archive, if you happen to read this, you left something behind last night. Shoot me a PM with specifics on what it was and we'll get it back to you. Maybe we can exchange more than a couple words this time if you're up for it.

Once I was done reading the message through twice, I blinked a few times while sitting back in the seat. Left something behind? Unless he was talking about Sophia, I had no idea what I could have...

Oh. Right. It struck me just then and I sighed in realization. I'd left the first aid kit behind. Crap, I'd been so focused on other things that I'd completely forgotten about it until this very moment.

I debated on what to do, if anything, for a minute. Honestly, the kit wasn't that big of a deal. I could get another one. But the invitation to have a conversation with someone like Shielder, who had been in this cape business for a while and was part of a well established team, that was tempting.

Finally, I logged out of the message board. I took a moment, focusing on one of the books that I had stored with my powers back when I was racking my brain to come up with bits of knowledge that might be useful to be able to pull out at any given time.

Once I had the knowledge ready, I took the next few minutes using the borrowed information to mask the computer's IP address as much as I could. This was a just in case measure. I didn't want to be stupid about potentially exposing who I was, or even where I went to school, to the wrong people.

After satisfying myself that I'd done what I could and that this was as safe as I could make it, I set up a new account on PHO using a dummy e-mail. Archive was already taken, so I went with Kenaz. Then I found Shielder's account and sent him a private message letting him know who I was and that it was the first aid kit that I'd left behind. I also went ahead and added the fact that I'd called Menja Fenja so that he could be even more certain that it was really me.

Clicking away from that after sending it, I figured I'd go get some food before lunch ended and check back after school. However, I'd barely clicked through a couple random topics while winding down before an alert came up that I had a new message. Sure enough, he had responded.

 **Shielder:** (Verified Cape) (Brockton Bay Brigade) (Received April 11th, 2011 – Opened April 11th, 2011) Hey, good to hear you made it out of there all right! We were a bit worried. Yeah, we've got your first aid kit. Actually, if you've got the time, we're on our lunch break right now, so we've got about an hour. Could meet you somewhere. Private, of course. Your choice, but we were hoping to discuss a couple things.

The message made me blink. Meet Shielder (and whoever else 'we' happened to be) somewhere? At first I blanched away from the idea, but after considering for a few seconds, I realized that I didn't particularly care about missing a period from this place. Actually, the staff noticing when I did something wrong and actually giving a shit would be a breath of fresh air at this point.

With that in mind, I sent back a reply asking if they could meet in a lot behind the old convenience store/gas station about two blocks from Winslow that had been closed down for months. That pretty much gave away where I went to school, but there wasn't a lot I could do about that. I didn't have any way to travel faster besides the bus, and that would take too long.

Once again, the reply came back only a minute later. Shielder said that 'they' would be on their way and could be there in about five minutes. I agreed, then quickly logged off and stood up. A glance toward the other occupants of the room showed that they were still involved in their game, and I walked out of first the lab, then the school itself without any issues. No one cared.

I ran across the back field away from the school, waiting until I was under the cover of some trees before stopping to look around. Seeing no one, I summoned my costume (or at least the top half of it, the jacket and mask) and quickly changed before setting out for the rendezvous point.

The lot in question had been abandoned for a long time. Weeds had long since overgrown the back area, and there broken beer bottles everywhere from other teenagers and homeless people. Someone had spraypainted 'Merchants Rule' in red. Beneath that, another person had added 'my cock.'

Seeing no one, I nudged a bottle out of the way with my foot and turned in a circle. Maybe this was dumb. There was a chance, however slim, that someone from the Empire or the ABB had hacked Shielder's account and set this up.

But why would they? I had contributed next to nothing to the actual fight. They had absolutely no reason to give a shit about me. I was nobody.

In mid-thought, I was startled as the scene around me changed. In place of the broken down convenience store, there was some kind of Japanese-style house, surrounded by a pretty stream lined with lily pads. The ground beneath my feet was a well kept gravel path, and there was no sign of any bottles. A thick stand of beautiful trees surrounded the small, suddenly confined area where I stood.

"Well," a voice announced from above me. "So much for not attracting attention, huh?"

Looking up, I saw Shielder descending toward me. He was accompanied by what looked like a seven and a half foot tall anthropomorphic lioness with massive golden wings like that of an angel. The awe-inspiring figure wore gleaming metal armor, and held a sword that was larger than I was.

After landing, Shielder turned to swat the big armored lion-person. "Oh knock it off. You're freaking her out. She's not used to you, remember?"

The voice that emerged from the terrifying lion-warrior angel was that of a teenage girl. "Oh come on, Shielder. You couldn't let me have just a little bit of fun?" When the boy did nothing but continue to stare at her, the lion slumped a little. "Fiiiine."

In the next second, the lion-angel vanished. It was replaced by a still somewhat tall (especially compared to me) but much more reasonably sized and less intimidating figure. The armor and sword remained, though they had been resized to more properly fit, and a neat looking tiara with an attached golden visor similar to Shielder's own blue one had been added to conceal her face. Long, gorgeous blonde hair flowed behind her, and I saw a line of perfect white teeth as she smiled at me.

Right, Seraph. Now I knew what was going on. I should have figured it out earlier. Another member of the Brigade, she was the one who had changed what the area around me looked like, the same way she had changed her own appearance. She was technically an illusionist, but her powers were much more than that. They were about the mid-point between illusion and reality, since they were actually solid light holograms that _could_ and _did_ hurt people that they hit. The holograms weren't invulnerable, but they could take a beating and hit pretty hard before they fizzled.

Seraph used her powers to outfit herself with various weapons and armor, as well as altering the appearance of the battlefield or masking her opponents to make them fight one another, or even creating her own reinforcements out of solid holograms. She was constantly making duplicates of herself out of light and pummeling her opponents from every side. According to PHO, she was classified as a Mover because she could wrap her holograms around herself and use them to fly, a Shaker for her ability to alter the battlefield, a Brute because while she was covered in her holograms, she could hit much harder than normal and take more damage since any attack would hit her solid light first, a Master for her command of her holographic minions, a Changer due to her ability to mask her appearance behind a hologram, and a Stranger for the combination of her appearance and landscape alteration abilities.

Needless to say, she was considered one of the top capes in the city, and all indications showed that the Protectorate had been aggressively recruiting her for a while. Yet she showed no indication of wanting to leave her current team.

"So hey, sup?" She lifted her chin to me, still grinning. "How's it going?"

"I... umm... wow," I swallowed, still taken a bit by surprise. "Umm, hi."

She laughed easily. It wasn't a mocking laugh, but rather, one that invited others to join in with everything that she was enjoying. "Hi."

"Don't worry about her," Shielder assured me. "She won't bite. Here's your kit." He under hand tossed it to me, and I caught it in both hands before making it vanish back into my storage space.

"Whoa!" Seraph jumped a bit, her smile widening. "What'd you do? Where'd it go?"

"Oh." Realizing what I had done, I flushed beneath my cheap plastic mask that felt so pathetically inadequate next to these professional heroes. "I have a umm, a storage space. I mean, no, I meant that... it's sort of... umm, an invisible space that I can send objects to and retrieve them."

"Hammerspace, got it." Seraph gave me a thumbs up. "Pretty cool. Is that why you call yourself Archive? Because you archive objects?"

"Pretty much." I started to feel a little more comfortable and relaxed marginally, though just standing here _**talking**_ to real life capes, **real** heroes was pretty much a dream come true.

"So what else do you do?" She asked then, sounding genuinely curious.

Before I could respond to that, Shielder chuckled and held his hands out. "Hey, enough with the third degree. Give the girl a chance to breathe." He looked toward me and hesitated before continuing. "If you've got a few minutes, we'd like to talk to you a bit. Maybe with a less obvious set of surroundings?" He added pointedly toward Seraph.

"Yeah, yeah." She waved a hand and the Japanese grove disappeared, letting things go back to normal. "Party pooper."

"You... you guys want to talk to me?" I asked uncertainly. Why would they want to do that?

"If you're not busy," Shielder replied while nodding. "You're pretty new, right?" When I nodded, he gave me an encouraging smile. "That's what we thought. So, we could chat for a bit and see... where things go. If you don't have anything better to do, that is."

I hesitated, considering my options. Go back to school, or stay here and chat with two people who were not only around my age, but were also _legitimate_ super heroes on a team that wasn't connected to the people who had thrown Taylor under the bus to protect Sophia.

"Sure," I replied with a hesitant smile of my own. "I'd like to talk."

 **3-02 – Taylor**

Waking up after my power had focused my consciousness into someone else's body was always an awkward feeling. I was always snapping awake in the middle of a conversation, and it took my brain a few seconds to catch up on what was going on. It was sort of like dozing off while watching a television and then waking up when a completely different show was on, with no idea of the context. Only instead of watching on the television, I woke up trapped in one of the actors heads.

As awkward as that could be, I wasn't even going to get into how bad it had been the one and only time I woke up inside the head of one of the hospital's doctors while he and a nurse that was certainly **not** his wife took some private time. I didn't like to think about it, but the short of it was that I didn't care how many times that man washed his hands, I did not want him treating me for _anything._

At least this time when I woke up, I didn't feel the instant need to bleach someone else's eyes. Instead, I found myself staring into the depths of a pretty barren looking refrigerator. A male hand reached into view to push a half empty jar of pickles out of the way, and then grabbed onto six pack of beer toward the back before straightening and closing the fridge.

The view turned, and I saw a dingy little studio apartment with an attached kitchenette. The walls were blank, empty and an ugly yellowish white color. The floor was an awful shag carpet, and there was barely any furniture. I could see an old mattress in the corner with a blanket on it, a simple television, and a card table with a couple of folding chairs set around it. In the opposite corner from the mattress, nearest the television, there was an orange couch that had clearly been through several owners.

My body was lying on that couch, and Faultline was seated next to it on one of the folding chairs. She wore no costume. Instead, she was dressed smartly, in a pair of dark green slacks and a crisp black dress shirt, and her hair was down and loose. Her unmasked face was turned in my direction. Or rather, in the direction of the person whose head I was currently occupying, and _away_ from my body.

"Taylor," Faultline spoke without looking at my body, startling me a bit. "When you wake up, I need you to raise your left arm so we know that you're conscious."

The hands in front of me picked up a simple bottle opener and pried the tops off of the beers before walking around the counter. He crossed the two steps from the kitchenette to the couch and held out one of the bottles to the woman there. She accepted the bottle and took a pull from it before meeting his gaze evenly. "You have a question, Mr. Hebert?"

I felt my conscience jerk in shock. What? My... my dad? What was he doing with Faultline? What was he doing _**here?**_ Why wasn't he at home and what was this place anyway?

While I was still reeling, the familiar voice of my father replied, "Lots of them, actually. But right now, I just noticed that's the third time you've said that thing to her in the last twenty minutes. Except the first time you said right arm, and the second time you said both arms."

Faultline gave a single nod. "Yes. Since Taylor's reaction times have such a delay, there's no way of knowing whether she heard me the first couple of times. I'll say it until I get a reaction. It's plausible, though unlikely, that she heard the first time and hasn't managed to respond yet. It's slightly more possible that she heard the second time, and even more possible that she heard this time. There's just no way of knowing for sure, so I'll repeat what I say to her every five minutes or so until she responds. As for the different arms, which gesture she uses will help us know how long her reaction time was."

While she was talking, my father's eyes weren't on her, but on me instead. I felt his sick worry as he saw how thin and sick I looked, and his hand came up to gently brush my hair away from my gaunt cheek. He said nothing for the moment, but I could feel his distress, his desperate hope. "And you... you think that you can help Taylor when the hospital couldn't? No offense, but you're a..."

"Criminal?" She finished, clearly unoffended. "Well, to be fair, we have worked alongside the Protectorate on a number of occasions." When my father glanced at her, Faultline appeared to be considering, eyes cast up and to the side as she murmured numbers and the names of various locations. Finally, she lowered her gaze from the ceiling with a firm nod. "Right, we've worked with the Protectorate one and a half times more than we've fought against them. I think, mathematically speaking, that makes us heroes."

"Mathematically speaking..." Dad sounded doubtful and looked back to my body on the couch before blinking back up at her. "Wait, 'and a half?' How do you 'half' work on someone's side?"

"There may have been some dispute over what constituted the actual end of one contract and the beginning of another," Faultline admitted with a slight smile before sobering. "The point, Mr. Hebert, is that your daughter doesn't need a doctor, because her issues are not medical. There's nothing that the hospital can do to help her. She's a parahuman, and what she needs is guidance in using her gift."

I saw the darkness under my dad's eyes, and the worry lines that creased his face. He looked at least ten years older than he had before I'd ended up in the hospital, and with Faultline he had the bearing of a drowning man who was being thrown a life preserver but wasn't sure if the people holding the other end were friend or foe. The stress in his voice was palpable. "I don't understand what kind of power could do this to her. She can't even move, and you want me to believe that she can be a cape?"

"Oh, she **can** move, Mr. Hebert," Faultline assured him, meeting my father's gaze pointedly. "I can't explain why yet, but her gift seems to limit her control over her own body to times of combat."

My father opened his mouth to question that, but before he could say anything, Faultline produced a phone from her pocket and held it up. "I want you to watch this video. My associates removed the security footage of the incident, but we maintained a copy. Look at what your daughter is capable of."

Through my dad's eyes, I watched the scene taken from the point of view of the hospital security camera. We both watched as my body moved perfectly, putting down those armed and dangerous men as easily as if they were toddlers. Dad gasped several times throughout, muttering, "My god," more than once. When it was over, he sat heavily in the nearby folding chair and turned his gaze to my body.

I was scared. Seeing what I had done through his eyes made me realize even more just how strange and overwhelming it was. What if it was too much? What if he was afraid of me? What if he saw what I had done and didn't recognize who I was anymore? If my dad was afraid of me, I didn't know what I'd do.

While I was busy panicking about worst case scenarios, my left arm lifted finally. It rose up and my father gasped once more before standing so quickly he knocked his chair over. He stepped over and grabbed hold of my hand, staring down at me. "Taylor?" There was some mixture of fear and hope in his voice then. "Taylor, you can hear us? You're there. You can hear us. You know what's going on." The strain in Dad's voice reached a breaking point, and the view through his eyes became distorted briefly by tears before he used his free hand to wipe them away. His other hand held mine even tighter.

My view jumped out then to show the whole room, and I saw Faultline looking at her watch. "Left arm," she observed. "Six minutes then. Very good, Taylor. I thought seeing your dad might help that."

"Taylor," Dad's voice cracked as he clutched my hand, lifting it up to kiss the back of it. "God, Taylor. You're in there. You can hear me. Please, please be okay." Through my all encompassing view, I could see both the tears in his eyes and the way his shoulders shook. He didn't seem to care about Faultline's presence. His focus was solely on me. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you."

He sat on the end of the couch, lifting my body to settle my head against his chest while wrapping his arms around me fully. For awhile, he simply held onto me while occasionally kissing the top of my head or my hand. Now and then he would whisper his gratitude and relief, though whether it was pointed toward me, Faultline, or some other power I couldn't begin to guess. Maybe all of the above.

Finally, Dad looked up toward the other woman, who had sat there patiently throughout the last few minutes. He cleared his throat and then asked, "Right is yes, left is no?" When she nodded, he looked down at me. "Taylor, are you all right? Aside from your body, I mean. Inside. You can think, you're all... you can hear us and you know what's going on?"

For the next seven minutes, they both waited patiently. There was no small talk, no attempt at any conversation. The two of them were silent while my father's worried gaze stared down at me.

Then my right hand went up, and Dad let out a choked sob while clutching my body even tighter.

"Taylor, god, thank god. Thank you. You're okay. You're... well no, you're not okay, but you're in there. They said they didn't know whether you could hear anything or not. They couldn't tell how much you understood. They didn't know if you were really conscious. Thank you. God. If you'd been, if it hadn't been for..." Trailing off, my father made a noise of relief and hugged me tighter.

Eventually, Dad looked up at Faultline. "Thank you," he said firmly while running a hand down through my hair. "Thank you for this. For telling me. For explaining things. I just... I don't know what to do. If she's a parahuman, a cape, shouldn't she learn from the Protectorate, the... good guys?" Wincing a little then, he added quickly, "No offense."

"None taken," Faultline smiled just a little. "I showed my face to you because you deserve to be told these things face to face, not through a mask. I and my people have done some not so nice things, it's true. We do the jobs that we're paid for, and some of those jobs aren't so nice. But we don't accept every job, Mr. Hebert. I won't say that we're beacons of morality, but we do have standards. We don't go after innocent civilians. We don't hurt people that aren't involved if we can help it. We follow our own code."

After standing from the chair, she went on. "If you want to send Taylor to the Protectorate and the PRT and hope that they can help her, I couldn't really blame you that much. They are the good guys. They're the shiny beacons of light in a world drowning in shadows."

Faultline turned on her heel to look at my father. "So no, I wouldn't be able to blame you for thinking that they would be the best people to help your daughter. But I would remind you of something very important before you make that decision. Those people, the bastions of morality that your civic duty says should be the people that you turn to in a case like this, are the same ones who uphold the system that did this to your daughter." She held a hand out toward me. "The system, the one they protect and enforce, doesn't care about your child, Mr. Hebert. The school your daughter went to, how long did they pay the hospital bills before finding an excuse to stop? Taylor was in the hospital for three months. Three months in an expensive room that the school wasn't paying for entirely. Three months that's driven you here, to this place."

She indicated the room around her. "You sold your house, Mr. Hebert. You sold your house to keep paying for Taylor's hospital bills. You live like this because of that system. The system those people protect are why you live like this, and why Taylor has not found any justice. The system does not care about you, sir. The system does not care about Taylor." Lifting a hand, she pointed to herself. "I do. I care about Taylor. I care about all of my people. My people, my team, are my family, and I will die before I let them be hurt or give up on them. I believe that I can help her, that _**we**_ can help her. But it's your choice, and I won't interfere with that. If you want to trust those people, that's up to you. All I ask is that you think about what you're doing. Really think about it, not from the point of view of what you're supposed to do, but from the point of view of what is best for Taylor."

Her voice had become a buzzing drone in the back of my head through the latter half of what she was saying. I was stuck on the revelation that my father had sold our house. He'd sold our home? He'd moved into this crappy, dinky little apartment all because of me? All because of my condition? I'd made my dad lose his home, the place he and mom had... our... our home. It was gone and it was all my fault.

No, I realized belatedly. It was their fault. The school, the hospital, and _**them.**_ The girls. Emma, Madison, and Sophia. They hadn't just ruined my life, they had driven my father out of his house. This was their fault.

Dad was quiet for a few seconds, simply brushing his finger over my cheek delicately. He sniffed once and then kissed the top of my head again. I could see the wetness in his eyes as he thought about it. Finally, he cleared his throat and whispered to me. "Taylor, what do you think? This is your life, kid. You tell me. What do you want? Who do you want to help you? Right hand for the Protectorate, left hand for her." He nodded toward Faultline.

The system had ruined my father. They didn't care about me. They had protected those bitches and thrown me and my father to the wolves. This time, through the anger that pounded in my mind, it only took four minutes before my left arm went up.

Dad simply stared at my arm for a few long seconds before lifting his gaze to the woman. "You're not lying?" He sounded like he was pleading. "You really believe that you can help her, that you can help Taylor."

"Yes," Faultline answered without hesitation. "I believe I can help your daughter. But it's going to take time, and I'm going to have to take her with me. You can visit, but we have jobs to do, and I have other people to take care of as well. I believe that being around them will help her. And I believe that she will be able to help them as well. This won't be easy or short, Mr. Hebert, but I will not give up until I have done absolutely everything that I can for Taylor. You have my word."

Once more, Dad went silent. His fingers tenderly brushed my hair and cheek while he held me tight against him with a protective arm. When he eventually spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. "Okay," he said while closing his eyes to stop the tears. He had to blink a few times to see properly before continuing. "Okay, then I believe you. If you can help Taylor, do it. Whatever it takes, I don't care. Just help her, please."

Nodding, Faultline came over to stand by the couch. She gazed down at me and gave a little smile. "Okay, Taylor," she said quietly.

"Let's get to work."

 **3-03 – Emma**

Two city buses later and I was at the hospital. Now I just needed to find an out of the way place to change clothes. I couldn't exactly present myself at the desk or let myself be seen since I, along with Madison and Sophia, all had restraining orders that demanded we keep our distance from Taylor.

Thankfully, I didn't have to talk to anyone to find out where Taylor was staying. I could could go straight to the room in question since I already knew which one it was. I'd spent hours on the street below it, watching the light against the curtains and wondering if Taylor would ever wake up.

But if I didn't want to risk being seen and questioned by any of the staff or myriad of police that were still around, I needed to use my power. Which was why I needed my costume. I couldn't risk being spotted disappearing or reappearing by anyone either in person or over a camera that I might miss.

So, rather than go straight across the lot and to the entrance, I made my way down the street a bit until I found a short L-shaped alley that led behind a small strip mall. It was hidden away from the road.

Taking note of the stationary camera ahead of me that was pointed away from me and at the back door of a dog grooming shop, I gave one last look around before focusing on my power. The world went red and I held my breath while swinging my backpack around in front of me. Lowering it down to the ground before pushing my feet together to rest it between them so that my power would still consider it attached to me, I unzipped the bag and started taking out the pieces of my costume. They had come into the time freeze with me, so I could still touch them as normal as long as they didn't get too far away.

Changing clothes in the middle of the alley was still a bit scary, even though I had both made sure I wasn't being watched, _ **and**_ happened to be in the middle of a frozen time state so no one could see me anyway. It still felt awkward and weird. Not to mention that trying to do all of it without dropping anything and on a single breath of air was going to take some practice to get used to.

On the other hand, as soon as I was changed and had my street clothes stored in my backpack, I was able to pop back into real time fully dressed. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen me in my street clothes instantly replaced by me in my costume.

Standing in my dark red pants, red running shoes, gloves, black long-sleeved shirt with the glittery red pattern, and black mask with red lenses, I felt less like Emma Barnes. I felt less like the bitchy little traitor that no one could count on to help anyone but herself. I felt more alive, more capable.

Which, of course, was the exact moment that my cell phone rang out loudly from inside my backpack, making me shriek shrilly in surprise like a stereotypical little girl, reflexively throwing the bag away as if someone had dropped a live, squirming snake in my arms.

I had stumbled backward a step before realizing what was making the sound. Flushing under the mask that I wore, I took a step that way and crouched to open the bag. It wasn't technically _**my**_ phone, not the one that my parents paid for. It was the cheap little disposable phone that I kept with my costume.

Staring at the ringing phone, I read the screen uncertainly. The call was coming from a number that I didn't recognize, which made sense because no one I knew should have the number. Frowning uncertainly, I let the phone go to voice mail. A few seconds later, however, it started ringing again.

Finally unable to resist, I flipped the phone open and spoke, "Hello?"

"Hey, uhhh," a vaguely familiar voice spoke before pausing. "You know, you really need a name that we can use aside from 'hey you.' Have you figured one out yet, or are we still on Teleport-Lass?"

"Who is," I started before realizing how I knew that voice. "Wait, Tattletale?" I asked incredulously, quickly looking around to make sure no one had come into view. "How did you get this number?"

"Oh, right, that." The other girl sounded a smidge guilty, though mostly just pleased with herself. "I sort of cloned your cell to get your phone number while you were with us last night."

"You what?!" I blurted, eyes wide as I went rigid. She took my phone number? Granted, I didn't have anything important on it, that was kind of the point of having a burner phone. But still, what other information could she have gotten without me knowing about it? And I still didn't know what her power was, come to think of it. Was she a tech genius or something?

"Sorry," she didn't sound all that convincing. "But I wanted to have a way to call and thank you for what you did for us once things weren't so crazy. You didn't have to do any of that."

My mouth opened and then shut before I managed, "Taking my phone information without just asking is a pretty weird way of saying, 'hey thanks for risking your life to help our teammate.'"

"Right." That time, Tattletale sounded a least a little more contrite. "Sorry. I really did just want to say thank you though. You risked a lot for us, even if we are criminals." There was a brief pause then before she went on. "I guess you saw what people are saying about you now, though."

"They think I'm one of you guys." I said flatly. "They think I'm a villain." At this particular moment, it wasn't exactly something I was focused on, but it still stung a little bit.

Through the phone, I could hear Tattletale's sigh. "Yeah. About that, if you like, we'd be willing to make some kind of statement that you aren't one of us and that we tricked you into helping us. I don't know if it would help or not, but with that combined with your own statement and the fact that no one actually saw you commit any kind of crime aside from standing next to us..."

It might work, I realized. It was possible, if the Undersiders denied that I was one of them and I came forward the right way, it could make the authorities realize that I wasn't a villain.

Or they might just dismiss it as a trick and come after me anyway. More likely, they'd insist on some kind of probation system to make sure I was on their own side, similar to Sophia's. Which would mean that I would be on a team _**with**_ Sophia. And that was something that I absolutely refused to consider.

"I'll think about it," I finally decided. "Maybe it'll help." Hesitating then, I added, "Thanks."

"We owe you," she replied simply. "I take it you still don't have a name after all, then?"

Flushing guiltily, I shrugged reflexively. "I've had a lot on my mind this morning."

"Fair enough," Tattletale acknowledged. "If it helps, we've been calling you Shift, for lack of a name."

"Shift?" I repeated, considering the name briefly before shaking it off. "Uhh, thanks. I really need to go now though. I've got something to do." Looking up and away from the alley to peek around the corner at the hospital down the street, I added, "Something important."

"Got it." The other girl sounded like she might want to say something more than that, but in the end, she just finished with, "You have my number now. If you want us to make any kind of statement, or if you need anything that we can help with, feel free to call. We really do owe you."

Grabbing my backpack and zipping it up once more, I shrugged it onto my shoulders while replying, "I'll keep that in mind." There was another awkward moment of silence before I added, "Thanks."

Disconnecting the phone before the other girl could reply, I slid it into the side pouch of my back pack while striding around the corner of the alley and back into the lot. Two people walking by looked up and gasped at the sight of me, but before they could say anything, I froze time.

Shit, I hadn't even been thinking before I walked around that corner. I should have used my power first. Now, those people would see me disappear from in front of them, 'teleporting' out of their sight.

Oh well, even if they did think I was a villain, I probably wasn't a big enough priority to get anyone after me when I hadn't actually done anything wrong.

While in the frozen time state, I jogged across the street and down to the parking lot of the hospital. I ran through parked cars and around bystanders (I tried to avoid going through people whenever I could, because eww) on my way toward the hospital itself. Halfway across the lot, I had to duck down behind a large truck to stay out of sight of a couple of nurses that were on their way out while I let time go back to normal so that I could take another breath. Then I froze it again and kept going.

Running straight into the hospital and past a pair of PRT agents that were standing around a cordoned off portion of the lobby where it looked like most of the damage had been done, I took an immediate right and moved toward the elevators. Once there, I walked right through the closed doors and into the shaft, floating in place while looking up. The elevator car itself was one floor above me, and I floated myself up and through it, passing a doctor and a man in a suit before re-emerging in the shaft above. Then I settled myself onto the roof of the elevator and let time resume so that I could breathe.

It was going down, so after breathing a couple times, I froze time again and floated my way up to the floor that Taylor was staying on. By that time, the reality of what I was doing, of who I was trying to check on, had caught up with me. I felt cold, and a little sick. Part of me wanted to turn around and leave again. I felt so ashamed, so worthless, whenever I thought about what I had done to my former best friend, that I wanted to throw up. I wanted to lock myself in a corner and repeatedly beat my head against the wall until my outside hurt as bad as my inside did.

I was scared, I realized. I was terrified of facing the girl that I had ruined, of outright seeing what I had done to her. I deserved to be the one laying in that bed. It should have been me, not Taylor.

Once I reached the room that Taylor had been assigned to, I was in for two surprises. First, the bed was empty. She wasn't there. The second surprise, however, was that the room still wasn't empty. Standing by the door, frozen in the act of talking on his cell phone, was my father. My _dad_ was standing in Taylor Hebert's empty hospital room. What the hell was he doing there? And where was Taylor?

Suddenly feeling cold with terror at what might have happened, I stared at the empty bed. Worst case scenarios flew rampantly through my brain before I could get a hold of myself. Finally, I all-but flung myself into the nearby bathroom and stood out of sight before letting time resume so I could listen.

"-don't know why, exactly." My dad was talking with his 'lawyer voice.' "All I know is that he checked her out of the system this morning. No, she's not awake. As far as I know, there's been no change."

At first, my heart had risen at the news that Mr. Hebert had checked Taylor out. Then it had come plummeting down again as thoroughly as if I had stepped back into that elevator shaft and let myself fall. Taylor wasn't any better, her father had just taken her out of the hospital. But why?

As if answering me, my father went on. "He says he saw what was happening and took her out of the hospital to keep her safe. But my guess is that he finally ran out of money. Even after he sold the house, I doubt he got very much for it. He probably couldn't afford to keep her here for much longer anyway."

What? If anything, the cold chill that had settled over me got worse. What the hell was Dad talking about? Taylor's dad sold their house? But what about insurance? What about the school? What about... what about their _**home?**_ That was Taylor's house, it was the place that her mom had raised her. It was one of the only things they had left of her. All those memories, everything that made them a family. Why? Why had Taylor's dad been forced to sell it? Why wasn't insurance taking care of things?

Because, I realized belatedly, the insurance company was just the latest in a long list of people that had screwed over the Heberts. Clearly, they had denied the claim or something, had found some excuse not to pay. And the school had only paid for part of it, since my father had kept the case out of court. He fought Taylor's dad at every turn, forcing him to accept a deal that wasn't perfect, that didn't punish me, Madison, or Sophia nearly as much as we deserved, just to get _**some**_ help for Taylor. It obviously hadn't been enough. It hadn't been enough, and Taylor's dad had had no option other than to sell their house.

The realization hit me like a hammer, and I slowly sank down to my knees while staring at the wall ahead of me. Gone. Taylor's home was gone. Her father had sold it. Now, even if she did wake up, that piece of her life would be gone forever. They couldn't get it back. There was no way her father would ever have the money to get their house back from whoever had bought it.

In the background, I heard my father say something about a lawsuit, then his voice grew fainter as he walked out of the hospital room. I was left kneeling there as the horrible thoughts about the position that Taylor and her father were in now washed over me.

After a few seconds of that, I slowly rose to my feet and moved a step over to stand in front of the bathroom mirror. Staring into the glass, I reached up to tug my mask off so that I could see my pale face.

"You did this," I said out loud, watching my own reflection flinch. But I didn't look away. I couldn't stop meeting my own gaze. "This is your fault. Everything that happened to Taylor and her dad before, and everything that's happening to them now is because of you. Traitor. Bitch."

Gripping the sink tightly with both hands, I stared into my own face for a few long seconds before speaking again, my voice hoarse. "I don't deserve to be a hero. The news wasn't wrong. I'm not a good person."

Taylor's father had sold their house. He had no way of getting it back, no way of saving the home that he and Taylor's _ **mother**_ had bought together. The memories that **I** had of Mrs. Hebert, Taylor's mom, in that house were overwhelming. The thought of how both of them would feel about losing that was a physically crushing blow.

He couldn't do anything about it. But maybe, just maybe, I could. I didn't deserve to be a hero. But Taylor and her father deserved to get their house back. No matter what it cost me in the long run. No matter what I had to do.

My phone was back in my hand before I really thought about what I was doing, and I hit the button to call back the number that had called the phone last.

It took three rings before Tattletale answered. "Didn't expect to hear from you so soon, Shift."

"Redshift." I told her. I wanted to have at least **some** input on my own name, and red was already mixed into my color scheme. Plus people saw red patterns when I used my power anyway. "It's Redshift."

"Redshift then," I heard the smile in her voice. "What can I do for you, Redshift?"

I hesitated only for a second before asking, "How would you guys like to rob an insurance company?"

 **3-04 – Madison**

After summoning some kind of hard light bench to sit on, Seraph gestured for me to join her. I hesitated for a moment before doing so, surprised by the relative comfort of the bench itself. The material was softer than I had expected it to be, almost as if it was heavily padded. Clearly the other girl had even more control over her constructs than I'd thought if she could soften them like this.

From Seraph's smirk, she had been expecting my surprise. She said nothing about it, however. Instead, she leaned closer, her eagerness apparent. "So like I said, what else do you do besides store objects?"

"Boy," Shielder sat down at the other end of the bench on the opposite side of me. "You're gonna feel like crap if that's the extent of her power, Seraph. Not everyone wins the super power lottery like you."

"Jealous," she shot back at him before shrugging. "Besides, unlimited personal storage space isn't anything to sneeze at. But I bet it's more than that, and I'm a good judge of character." Shielder opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Seraph raised a finger in a warning gesture. "And I swear to Scion, if you bring up Pesticide, I will lock you in a box until I'm done talking to our new friend."

Clearly undeterred, Shielder held both hands up. "Hey, all I'm gonna say is that his name was Pesticide. Pesticide. That's not generally seen as a heroic name, all things considered."

"Everybody has an off day," Seraph insisted with a huff. "Besides, Archive's not offended, right?"

My head had been whipping back and forth between the pair as they bantered, so by the time I was addressed directly, I felt a little dizzy and had to take a moment before shaking my head. "Oh, no. Not really. I mean, my power, that is, umm..." Wow, talking with real capes as myself like this was hard. I felt awkward and strange, like I didn't really belong there. Finally, I forced myself to continue, pretending that I was talking to myself. It helped, somewhat. "When I use my power to absorb something, I learn a bit about it. Like its history, how it was used in the last hour or so at first, then more of its history the longer I keep it in my storage space and focus on it."

"Wow!" Seraph sounded genuinely impressed, bringing the blush back to my face. "So basically if you stored say, a knife that was used in a murder, you could figure out the killer after enough time?"

I winced. "Not _exactly_ the killer's identity. I don't know the identity of the person using the item, only the way that it was used. So I could say for sure that it was the murder weapon, but not who used it."

"Still," Shielder shrugged on the other side of me. "That could help the police a lot."

Feeling a little bit better, I straightened slightly and gave a hesitant nod. "I umm, I guess so. Plus I don't just learn an object's history, I learn how to use it properly. I think what I learn depends on what the item was used for the most. Like, with the knife example, if it was mostly used for chopping vegetables for cooking, I'd gain the ability to do that by focusing on the knife when it's inside my storage space. If it was used for whittling wood, I'd get that skill. And if it was used mostly for knife fighting..."

"You'd learn how to fight with a knife," Seraph nodded in understanding. "Gotcha. So as long as you focus on the item in question, you gain the skill associated with that item?" I nodded, and saw her grin back at me. "Sweet! See, I knew there was more to you than hammerspace."

"Oh," I remembered then. "And if I store books, I can recall the information in them whenever I want. I uhh, I used it with a couple translation books last night to understand what the ABB guys were saying."

"Oh man," Shielder chuckled, shaking his head. "That must make school a breeze."

Before I could respond to that, Seraph pressed on. "So is it just objects? Can you absorb bullets being shot at you? Lasers? Poison gas? Acid? Rabid attack dogs?"

My eyes grew progressively wider behind my mask with each word, until Shielder finally interrupted her. "God, Seraph, we're trying to encourage the girl, not terrify her."

Snorting at that, Seraph shook her head. "I'm trying to get an idea of what her limits are. Better to know now than later." To me, she smiled. "Besides, you can handle it. So, any ideas on that stuff?"

I gave a little nod, more at ease than I would have thought given the circumstances and the line of questioning. "Uh, I'm pretty sure I can do bullets as long as I have my absorb field up when they come. I can only keep it up for a few seconds at a time, and it gets harder the longer I have it active. For the rest, uhh, I don't know about lasers. Light makes it through just fine. I tried shining a flashlight at myself and using the field, and the beam of the light still touched me."

"Probably a no-go on lasers then," Shielder observed. "Good to know."

"I wouldn't want to test poison gas," I continued. "Since I can breathe while the field is up, I think gas goes through it okay. Plus I stood in front of a fan and still felt it, so I don't think air is absorbed either."

Seraph ticked them off on her fingers. "So that's a no on gas and light. Liquids and attack animals?"

"Can't absorb anything living," I admitted. "I mean, I can do things that were **formerly** living, like the wood of a bat or whatever. But nothing that's currently alive. So no absorbing any wild animals."

"Makes sense." Shielder was nodding. "That's why you didn't absorb Shadow Stalker last night."

"But liquids, I can definitely absorb those." Starting a bit then, I added, "Oh, right, I can shoot the objects back out again too. I absorbed water out of the bathtub and then sprayed it like a hose. And the stream seemed fairly strong. I tried it with a baseball and I think it came out pretty fast."

Shielder was nodding at that. "Shouldn't be too hard to get a speed gun and find out. If you want."

"Now **that** could definitely be useful," Seraph was still grinning at me. "Some jackass pops off a shot at you, but you absorb it and throw the bullet right back at his stupid ass." Leaning forward abruptly to get in Shielder's face before he could speak, she added, "And before you bitch, I meant _non-lethally."_

I was frozen there, with the blonde girl practically laying over me with her focus on the boy. For a moment, I could smell her hair and all I could think was, 'mmmm, peaches.' I barely avoided shivering.

Before I ended up making too much of an idiot out of myself, Seraph straightened after flicking Shielder's leg pointedly. She glanced to me, the top half of her face obscured by that golden visor. "Anyway," she said breezily, "I get why you call yourself Archive now. That all sounds really useful."

"Really?" I asked, feeling a bit emboldened by the praise from an actual, established and known hero.

Seraph nodded enthusiastically. "Sure, I mean, an absorb field that can shoot objects back out again, _**and**_ you get the skills and information about items that you put away? That's awesome." Her gaze flicked up to the boy then to address him. "So what do you think? I say go for it."

"Go for what?" I asked blankly, looking from one of them to the other uncertainly.

It was Shielder who spoke then. "Ah, well we weren't exactly totally honest, really. We didn't **just** want to chat with you about your powers and what happened last night. We had a umm, ulterior motive."

He shifted and seemed to be searching for the right words, but Seraph grew impatient and interrupted. "We came to find out if you want to talk about joining up with the Brigade. Isn't that great?!"

I heard a sputter escape Shielder while my own mouth fell open. The boy shook his head rapidly at the blonde girl. "What part of 'ease her into the idea gently' completely escaped you?"

"The part where it's boring," Seraph shot back. "Besides, why wouldn't she want to join? We are, quite frankly, an awesome group of people and an all-around amazing team. Oh, and that's not bragging, that's just reading." To demonstrate, she held up a phone in one hand, showing me an online news article entitled, 'Brockton Bay Brigade: Awesome Group Of People And All-Around Amazing Team.'

Shielder spoke dryly then. "So you know, if you wanna turn evil just so you can beat down her ego a little bit, I think everyone on the team would completely understand that instinct."

"Hey," Seraph pointed across me at him. "I said she was good, but not **that** good."

"Case in point," he replied while lifting a hand to gesture toward her in demonstration. Then he coughed before focusing on me. "Anyway, seriously. We talked about it for a long time last night and some this morning. Lady Photon said we should ask how you felt about meeting everyone to discuss joining up with the Brigade. You know, if you have any interest and if you're not a Ward already."

"Which she's not," Seraph added. "I told you, my ahh, contact-" It felt like she was going to say something else before settling on 'contact'. "-told me that they've never seen her before. And they're not getting her either, because we totally called dibs."

I couldn't help but cut in at that point, flustered as I was. "You called dibs on me?"

Sighing, Shielder gave a reluctant, put-upon nod. "She's not kidding. She called Armsmaster at six in the morning and yelled, 'DIBS' before immediately hanging up on him."

That surprised a giggle out of me, as Seraph nodded confidently "He knew what I was talking about."

Shielder sounded amused in spite of trying not to be, as if he knew he was supposed to be the serious one, but it was hard to maintain. "Anyway, we're serious on that part. We want you to join the team before you get snatched up by some other group, or..." He sobered then. "Or before some villain group comes after you because you don't have any backup. Solo heroes don't tend to last that long without help of some kind. If you want to limit that to just being acquaintances and exchanging numbers, we can absolutely do that too. We want to help any way you'll let us. But you should consider joining up."

"But, but," I was still overwhelmed. "You don't even really know anything about me."

"We know enough," he replied. "We know your first instinct to seeing someone about to step on you and an injured girl wasn't to save yourself. It was to throw yourself on top of her on the slim chance that it would save her life if that foot came down on you both. Once you see something like that, there isn't a _**lot**_ of other things that you need to find out before you want that person on your team."

His words made me blush. "I wasn't thinking about all that," I shifted uncomfortably on the bench. "I wasn't thinking at all, really. I just saw it and... reacted."

"Exactly!" That was Seraph. "You saw it and reacted by risking your life. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was kind of dumb. There were probably other things you could have done that would have done more to stop or redirect her. But seriously, the instinct sounds _really_ heroic. That's why we want you. The training and all that stuff so you actually know what to do in that situation, that can come later."

I was still overwhelmed by all of this. I hadn't expected to join any group at all, let alone this soon. Honestly, I'd vowed to myself that I would have nothing to do with the Protectorate or the Wards because of how the thing with Sophia went down. I didn't want to be a part of that. But this? This was a completely different group, one with no real connection to those people. And they wanted me to join.

Shielder was trying to give me a reassuring smile. "If it'll help, we can give you a contact number and then talk to you about it once you've had time to think some more without us hovering over you."

"I'm not hovering," Seraph insisted. "I'm eagerly waiting for her answer." To me, she continued while grabbing both of my hands. "Oh come on, please? Pretty please with butternut pecan ice cream-" Moving one of her hands to put a finger up toward Shielder, she added, "Shut up, it's delicious. Pretty please join up with us? It'd be awesome to have a new member who wasn't a part of ahh, who wasn't quite so close to the team already." Frowning then, she sighed. "Look, would you please, please just join so that I don't have to try to be so vague about everything all the time? We really want you."

I wasn't sure why, but her words and proximity made something stick in my throat. "Umm." It took a moment to gather myself, and I gave a slight shiver while trying to clear my head. I tried to think of some reason not to agree to this. Some part of me thought that I should refuse. I thought that I needed to work by myself, to atone for the kind of person that I had been. But I could do _more_ good with this group. With their help, training, and resources, I could accomplish a lot more than I'd ever be able to by myself.

"Okay," I finally nodded when I couldn't think of a concrete reason to refuse. "I'll umm, I guess I'll join up with you guys. I mean, if you really want an untrained, naive little amateur like me."

"Yes!" Instantly, Seraph's armor and mask disappeared, revealing a gorgeous teen girl in designer jeans and a cute little white and violet top that did a lot to emphasize her not insubstantial endowment. "Lemme call Aunt Sarah and tell her to come on down." She started to press a button on her phone before glancing up at Shielder's stare. "What? She said she'd join, so we don't have to hide who we are anymore." Sticking her tongue out then, she added, "Besides, you're just jealous because I can change faster than you."

Shaking his head, Shielder confided toward me, "She's not exactly a fan of the secret identity thing. She wishes all her friends could know how cool she is."

"Hah!" Without looking his way, Seraph cut in. "I knew I'd get you to admit that you think I'm cool." The phone must have been answered then, because she continued. "Yup, totally cool, Aunt Sarah. She's right here. You wanna bring the others? Sure, we're still behind the old Chug And Save off of Vine."

She hung up a moment later before announcing, "Aunt Sarah and a few of the others will be here soon." To me, she added, "Don't worry, you don't have to unmask until you're ready. No one's gonna make you do anything you don't want to. It's just that I **like** people knowing who I am, and I hardly ever get to really show off. Plus," she continued easily while gesturing around. "I'm not stupid enough to unmask in the middle of a field without taking protective measures."

When I looked that way, I saw walls and a ceiling surrounding the dirt lot where we were. After a second, I realized that they were more hard light constructs, created to look like part of the nearby building.

"See?" She was grinning at my reaction. "I'm useful to have around after all."

"She can be," Shielder agreed with only a little bit of reluctance. When I looked toward him, he pressed two recessed buttons on the sides of his visor. As he did so, some kind of mist shot out over his hair, turning it from blue to a dirty blonde. Then he lifted the visor off his head to reveal a boy maybe a year older than me, around the same age as Seraph. They definitely looked related.

"Wow," I blurted. "Your visor sprays out stuff that changes your hair color?"

He coughed at that. "Ah, gift from a friend. It can do a couple other colors too, but I prefer the blue. Plus it makes anyone that's looking for us search for someone with blue hair."

After that, Seraph put up walls around us that she said would look like more of the same building from the outside. Then we only had to wait about five minutes before the sound of a car announced the arrival of others. Turning that way, I watched as Seraph made that part of the wall disappear to reveal a nondescript but nice looking blue SUV pulling around from the front of the building.

The door of the SUV opened a moment later and the driver, a pretty blonde woman in her mid-thirties, stepped out along two other girls, a brunette with frizzy hair and freckles who wore green camo pants and a black leather jacket, and a blonde that looked like even more of a knockout than Seraph, wearing red pants with a white crop top. Jeeze, were _**all**_ the girls on this team gorgeous? I wasn't horrible looking by any means, but I had always been seen as more 'cute' than drool-inducingly hot.

"Well," the older woman spoke with a put-upon roll of her eyes as she took in the sight of Shielder and Seraph. "At least you two didn't waste time unmasking."

"She risked her life to save Shadow Stalker, Aunt Sarah," Seraph insisted. "Someone like that isn't gonna sell us out straight off."

"I won't say anything," I confirmed quickly while jumping to my feet. "I mean, not that I know that much as it is, but I won't say anything at all, either way. I promise."

Smiling at me, the woman nodded acceptingly. "I know that, sweetie. I trust their judgment... to an extent. I just want to make sure they don't take advantage of that." She added the last with a glance toward Seraph before clearing her throat to step toward me. "Sorry, that was rude. I'm Sarah Pelham, or Lady Photon. And you're... Archive."

I nodded slowly, staring at the woman as the extent of who she was really sank in. Lady Photon. She had been active as a hero for longer than I had been alive. Just seeing her here, in person, was amazing. Actually talking to her made my knees a little weak. "G-good to meet you, ma'am."

Her smile said that she knew what I was thinking, and she laid one hand on the shoulder of the beautiful blonde beside her. "This is Laserdream. My daughter, Crystal."

"Hey," Crystal tilted her head while looking at me. "You okay?"

"Mmmhmm." My answer came out a little strained, while I nodded vigorously. Coughing to clear my throat, I added, "I'm fine."

"And this," Lady Photon... Ms. Pelham... continued while laying a hand on the head of the frizzy haired brunette in the leather jacket and camo pants to rub a little fondly, "is my other daughter, Amy. Panacea."

"You sure you're okay?" Panacea asked while raising a hand to gesture at me. "You look a little pale."

That started a round of giggles, which I didn't understand until I raised my hand toward my face and found it blocked by the plastic there. "Oh!" I blushed. "Right." I took a breath, then tugged the hood of the windbreaker down before taking off the cheap, featureless white mask that was the source of the 'pale' comment.

Straightening then, I held the mask in both hands and looked at the people around me. "Umm, I'm Madison. Madison Clements."

"Good to meet you, Madison." Sarah Pelham extended a hand to me, still giving that welcoming smile. "You'll meet the others soon enough and we'll go over the full details. Everyone's on board with you joining as long as you want to. But if you change your mind and decide it's not for you, we'll still expect you to keep our secrets. People get into a lot of trouble when they try to give that kind of information away."

"I wouldn't do that," I nodded firmly. "No matter what. And," I added after a second, "I really would like to see what it's like on a team. I'd like to try."

Her smile broadened. "Excellent. In that case, Madison, welcome to the Brigade."

 **3-05 – Sophia**

The next afternoon, I was on my knees in front of shiny white porcelain when the creak of the restroom door drew my attention. Rolling my eyes, I gave a hard scrub at a stubborn spot on the underside of the toilet rim before giving a shout over my shoulder. "Can't you read, dumbass?! Restroom's closed!"

That was all I needed. After everything that had happened last night, culminating in my being knocked unconscious by one of my own darts, now I had to deal with some jackass that thought closed signs didn't apply to him. " D. Do I need to get a fucking Spanish translator or something?"

So no, apparently getting stabbed in the leg, electrocuted, and then drugged unconscious wasn't enough to get me out of my grunt work. Piggyfuck had just said that since Panacea's concoction healed the damage, I should be fine to keep working. Which was why I was here, elbow deep in a toilet.

Instead of leaving like a good little idiot, the footsteps approached, ringing off the tile floor. Right, so he was obviously one of those people that wanted to see Shadow Stalker scrubbing toilets. Fuck them.

I was about to give the jackass a piece of my mind when a familiar voice spoke up. "How's your leg?"

Turning, I still scowled up at the masked and armored figure that stood by the sinks. "Don't piss your codename all over me, Gallant. I don't need it and I don't want it. Go away."

"Sorry." His voice was rueful as he shook his head. "Piggot wants to see the Wards in her office."

"Do I count as a Ward now?" I waved my hands, covered as they were with wet yellow gloves, at him. "Or am I still just the dirty little secret that no one wants to talk to unless you need help."

For a second, Dean said nothing. Then he raised one of his armored shoulders in a shrug. "You're as much a part of the team as you want to be, Sophia. We all tried to reach out to you... before."

"Say it, Dean." I rose, stripping the yellow gloves off before tossing them and the scrub brush into the nearby bucket. Some of the water splashed out, but I didn't particularly care. "Before you found out I'm a monster? Before you all heard about how 'big bad Sophia' picked on poor little Taylor Hebert until she had a complete fucking freak out. Before you learned what a worthless fucking piece of shit I am?"

His voice was irritatingly calm. "I never said that. Not to you, not to anyone. There's only one person in this room that thinks you're a monster, Sophia."

I scowled at that, annoyed that he couldn't see my expression. "Don't you try to fucking psycho-analyze me, rich boy." I slipped past him and started to the door. Might as well get this over with.

Before I could leave the restroom, however, Dean's hand caught my arm. "Sophia, wait."

"Fuck you!" I spat, activating my shadow-state and spinning on him while going solid again once I was free. "Touch me like that again, and Daddy'll have to buy you a whole new set of teeth."

That finally got a real reaction out of the little emotion manipulator. "Sophia!" He hissed. "If anyone else hears you say something like that and it gets back to Director Piggot, you'll have a lot more to worry about than scrubbing a few toilets. Calm down. I just wanted to tell you that I thought what you did last night, distracting those guys so that Aegis could get the civilians out, was the right move."

I hated it, but he was right. I had to calm down. I wasn't _**like**_ this. I could turn my anger on and off. I could play the part of a subdued, contrite little hero when I had to. Or at least, I'd been able to before. But ever since everything had gone wrong after that stupid fucking locker prank, it was like I couldn't leash my own emotions anymore. I couldn't turn them off. Everything was just there, right under the surface all the time. Being beaten up by that cocksucker Alabaster the night before hadn't helped that.

"Fine, I'm sorry." I managed the words more easily than I would have thought. Maybe I was getting accustomed to saying them. "Just don't touch me like that, got it? I don't like it."

"Noted," Dean gave a short nod. "And I'm sorry for grabbing you. It won't happen again."

For a second, I just stood there, frowning behind my mask. That was it? We'd had an argument, I'd even threatened him, and now we'd both apologized and it was over?

As if to confirm that, the boy stepped over to push the door open, gesturing to me. "After you."

Still confused, I continued to stand there for another moment before turning on my heel to walk out.

Time to go see what the hell Fatty Fatty Piggyfuck wanted.

* * *

"I want you to focus on the Undersiders."

Piggot was behind her desk, watching all of us Wards standing pretty much at attention on the other side. Well, the others were standing at attention. Even little Vista looked like a proper soldier, clearly puffing herself up to pose for Dean. Poor kid hadn't stopped making googly eyes at him in months.

As for me, I was mostly just standing. I didn't particularly care enough to do more than that.

When no one interrupted her, the fat little woman continued. "They've been pulling off bigger jobs lately, like the casino a few weeks ago. And now they have two new members. The Protectorate has to focus on the mayor's missing niece, and this war between the Empire and the ABB. You need to take care of the smaller fish. Get the Undersiders off the streets for awhile. Show them that there's consequences when they start making too big of nuisances of themselves."

"Fuck the Undersiders, what about the Empire?" I blurted. My anger at what Alabaster had done to me outweighed my common sense once more. "We're just supposed to ignore them?"

Not that the Undersiders didn't deserve it, of course. But I had bigger priorities at that moment. Grue and his merry band of freaks could wait until I dealt with Alabaster. That particular racist fuck was going down. I didn't care how many crossbow bolts I had to put into him before locking him into shackles. He could heal all he wanted after I got the cuffs on him. All that meant was that I didn't have to play nice or use fucking kid gloves. I'd teach that piece of shit not to screw with Shadow Stalker.

Those beady eyes glared at me. "I'm sorry, did I not just finish saying that the Protectorate is handling that? The Empire is out of your league, Shadow Stalker. You should have realized that after last night."

I bristled, wanting to snap that Alabaster had taken me by surprise just because I hadn't known that it was him. But I kept silent, going rigidly still rather than saying anything else.

When I didn't argue back, Piggot almost looked disappointed. She left me plenty of time to say something before shaking her head. "Leave the Empire alone. That's an order. The Wards are to focus on tracking the Undersiders and stopping them from completing any more jobs. Is that understood?"

A chorus of yes ma'ams filled the room. I added my own voice, since Piggot would be listening for it.

Besides, it wouldn't be the first time I'd lied directly to her face.

* * *

So fuck it, the Wards weren't going to be investigating the Empire. But I'd never been that into the whole team thing anyway. I'd track that piece of shit Alabaster down and bring him in myself. Then they wouldn't be laughing at me behind my back. I knew they were, those fucks. Just going on about how funny it was that Shadow Stalker was stabbed and then knocked unconscious with her own dart.

Unfortunately, there were a few problems with tracking that piece of shit down by myself. First, I didn't really have much in the way of leads. The only thing I could think to do at the time was investigate the area around the ABB factory to see if I happened to notice anything. That, of course, led to another problem: I couldn't show up as Shadow Stalker. If Piggyfuck got a single word about Stalker being anywhere near that factory, she'd blow her top off. And as fun as it was to push that woman's buttons, in this case I needed to fly under her radar. At least until I could shove Alabaster down her throat, anyway.

So, rather than appear in costume, I decided to go past the neighborhood as myself. I had a plan, of course, as simple as it was. After getting home from doing the rest of my grunt work, I changed clothes to one of my running outfits and told Mom I was going for a jog. She barely acknowledged me aside from looking up to make sure I couldn't possibly be carrying any of my Stalker stuff on the way out.

As eager as I was to get this show on the road, I set a simple, easy pace for myself to avoid being too worn out by the time I reached the factory. If anyone that knew who I was happened to be around and stopped me, my excuse was going to be that I must have subconsciously gone that way because I was so pissed off about what happened. No, of course I wasn't playing vigilante, sir. I don't even have any of my gear, see? I was just another jogger that didn't notice where I was going.

It was about an hour before I reached the neighborhood where the gang war had happened. The factory area was cordoned off by yellow tape and some imposing looking signs, but by that time most of the technicians and police investigators had moved on after being there all night and all morning. The only people left to watch the place was a single cruiser parked near the front entrance.

There were some lookie-loos around the neighborhood, people taking pictures of bullet holes in trees and mailboxes. There was even some guy that probably lived in one of the nearby houses giving an actual guided tour for a small group of hangers-on. He was telling a story about how he'd heard the gunshots and watched from his window right over there as Shadow Stalker- I stopped listening and continued my jog. I didn't want to hear anyone else's impression about how that fight had gone.

Continuing through the neighborhood, I kept an eye on the factory out of the corner of my eye and thought about what to do next. Shit, this was always so easy for people in books and movies. Wasn't something supposed to happen as soon as I showed up that gave me a clue about where to look next?

Instead, I ended up doing three full passes through the neighborhood with nothing coming to mind before I finally took a break. Annoyed by the fact that just looking around area where I had fought Alabaster (or rather, where Alabaster had torn me apart) didn't give me any ideas, I plopped myself down on the curb next to a tall tree on the corner of the street and stared intently at the factory.

Wiping sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand, I slipped the water bottle off its strap on my hip and took a pull from it. Nice cool water ran down my parched throat while my eyes scanned for anything out of the ordinary, anything that I could somehow detective into Alabaster's location.

Okay, I wasn't stupid. I knew it wasn't as easy as going 'aha, a clue' and then poof, Alabaster. But I figured there might be some gang members around that I could keep an eye on to see where they went, or someone that looked suspicious hanging out. I hadn't expected all the sight seers and neighborhood profiteers to be out in force. Now there were too _many_ suspicious people hanging around.

On the other hand, it helped cover my own presence, so I didn't feel quite as bad about sitting down to for a few minutes to think. I took another sip of water and was considering my options when something caught my eye. Frowning, I leaned forward a little to watch the back of the warehouse more carefully.

Sure enough, some kid was sliding under a damaged part of the fence. From the distance, I couldn't tell how old he was, but I was guessing a couple years younger than me.

"What the fuck?" I muttered to myself. Some stupid kid out to get a souvenir from the ABB base? My eyes flicked over toward the distant police cruiser at the front, but it was faced the wrong direction, and probably too far away to see what was going on in any case.

The kid was moving across the field now, totally out of sight of the police and anyone else that might have stopped him. As I rose to my feet, I could see him slip in through one of the back doors.

Not even thirty seconds had passed while I tried to decide what to do before my eyes were drawn to three Asian guys heading across the back lot. One of them ran to the side of the building to check on the cop car, before joining his two buddies as the trio headed in through the same door the kid used.

Fuck me. I didn't have my costume, my weapons, not even my communicator. I wasn't supposed to be here at all. Yet, without thinking about what I was doing, I jogged across the street. My hands found the chainlink and I boosted myself up and over the fence easily before landing on the other side.

After giving a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, I ran for the same door, cursing under my breath the whole time. This was the last time I did something like this without having my costume. What the fuck had I been planning to do if something happened, or I actually found a lead to Alabaster? I'd just felt so angry, frustrated, and helpless that I'd had to do **something**. Which led to this.

The moment that I passed through the doorway and into what looked like an administrative office area, I could hear shouting ahead of me. Someone sounded really pissed off. Which meant that kid was already in trouble.

Once again cursing my lack of weapons or costume, I moved as quickly and quietly as I could down the hall. I passed darkened rooms on either side, ignoring the bloodstains on the floor and walls, and areas where the police had roped off a particular section for further investigation.

Just ahead and to the left, I saw an open doorway. Inside the room beyond, there was another shout and then what sounded like some kind of electric bug zapper, followed by a shrill scream.

I made it to the doorway and peered inside, finding the boy from earlier standing over one of the gang members. From this distance, I could see the kid a little more clearly. He was taller than I'd thought, and had black hair that was spiked up. He also looked really damn thin. Even at that point, I couldn't easily say how old he was. In fact, I was even less sure than I had been before. He might have been younger than Vista and tall for his age, or as old as I was and just look pretty young.

At the moment, he mostly looked angry. Standing over the fallen ABB thug, the kid held up his hands which were covered by some weird looking gloves that had circuitry and open wires running over them. He was also shouting. "Get back! Get away from me, you assholes! You don't know what else I can do. You wanna be next?!"

His words, I realized, were directed at the remaining two gang members. They were standing on the other side of the room, both of their guns held up and pointed at the kid with the gloves.

The two of them were shouting as well, though not in English. They seemed to be having an argument in Japanese or whatever language it was. One of them said something that was obviously a name from the way he repeated it and stared at the guy that was on the ground at the kid's feet. Probably trying to get him to respond.

Shit. Shit, shit, shitty shit. This was bad. This was _about_ to get even worse. Those guys didn't look like the kid's threats about his gloves were going to hold them off for long, and I was pretty sure that if he **could** have done anything to them from that distance, he would have already.

I had no costume, no weapons, and if I used my powers, they'd know who I was. But that kid was in danger, and somebody had to do something about it. And powers or not, I wasn't helpless by any stretch of the imagination. I had been training to fight bad guys for years now, and while I was accustomed to having my powers for help, I could handle these guys easily enough.

I took a breath to calm myself, repeating it once more while the shouting continued. Then, afraid to wait any longer, I pivoted and threw myself into the room.

The first fucker didn't even see it coming. I came in fast and hard. Before he could even turn around, my foot came up to kick his wrist hard enough to send the pistol flying out of his grip. Then my hands caught his arm and I gave a twist while yanking his elbow down into my rising knee. His arm snapped and the guy gave a squeal of pain before I let him fall to his knees, cradling his arm.

Using the kneeling man's back as a vault, I launched myself over him into a kick to the second man's stomach as he finished turning to face me. The blow doubled him over as a shot rang out from his gun. Before he could get off another one, or even straighten up, I gave him a quick kick to the side of the knee and stripped the gun out of his hand as he stumbled before casting it aside.

The first man was starting to rise, until I put an elbow back into his face, followed by a simple smack to his injured arm that put him on the ground, whining in whatever language he'd been using. I made him shut up with a swift kick to the face.

By that point, the second man was throwing a punch at me. My first instinct was to jump into my shadow-state, but at the last instant I remembered that I wasn't supposed to use it. The distraction cost me, and I took the blow across the face, staggering backwards and nearly tripping over the man on the floor before catching myself.

The guy that had hit me took advantage of that momentary distraction by pivoting on his heel and sprinting out of the room.

"Holy shit," the boy with the gloves blurted while staring at me. "Who the fuck are you?"

Instead of answering, I quickly moved to the gun that I had cast aside. Bending down, I used part of my shirt to wipe it off as best as I could. The last thing I wanted was for Piggyfuck to get a hold of an ABB gun with my prints on it after all this was over.

Then I moved to the doorway, ignoring the boy while listening. Sure enough, footsteps were approaching from the front area. The police had heard the gunshot and were on their way.

I almost took off right then, but first I turned and caught the boy by the arm. "Let's go." Dragging him by the wrist, I started for the exit, moving as quickly as I could while ignoring the pain in my face from where the guy had landed his lucky blow.

After a few steps, the boy stopped dragging his feet and ran with me. We went through the exit and were all the way across the field to the far end of the lot, then over the fence to the street beyond before he finally pulled free and turned to stare at me.

"Fine, we're out." He held up both hands, giving me a better look at those weird gloves of his. "Now who the hell are you and where did you come from?" He gave me a better look then and squinted. "Hey, you're a black chick."

My eyes rolled dramatically. "No shit, Sherlock. You must be some kind of fucking genius or something. Oh wait, no, you're a god damn _**moron.**_ What the hell were you doing in there?"

To my shock and confusion, the kid abruptly started crying. Big, heavy tears fell from his eyes, and I had the sudden memory of the way that Steven had always gone from happy to sobbing at the drop of a hat.

"Screw you," the kid shot back at me while shoving a hand angrily over his eyes. "I was trying to find out if they left anything behind."

"What are you," I looked the crying boy up and down. "Encyclopedia Brown?"

"Go to hell!" He shouted at me, eyes blazing even through his sudden tears. "Those motherfuckers killed Sierra!"

My mouth opened then and I stopped short, frowning. "Who?"

"My sister." He spat the words, taking a long breath as if to steady himself. "Last night, they killed her. Them and their fucking gang war. It was either them or the Empire, I don't even know which. All I know is Mom and Dad are being fucking useless, but I had all these ideas in my head. Ideas for things like these." He held up the clearly cobbled together gloves. "Things I could use to fucking make those cocksuckers pay."

"You're a tinker," I realized. "Fuck me, you're an actual tinker." I had to take a moment after that. He'd clearly triggered the night before, and the gloves were the first thing he'd made, cobbled together from spare parts.

"Your sister died... last night, and you're already out here? Where are your parents?" I asked rather awkwardly. I wasn't cut out for this sort of conversation.

"Being useless," he repeated while folding his arms over his chest. "Just like the cops, the Wards, the Protectorate, everybody. They're all fucking useless. I'm supposed to be sitting in my room, but I left. I left to get real answers, to actually _ **do**_ something. I couldn't..." Those tears were back. "I couldn't just... sit there anymore. I had these ideas and I made these gloves in the garage, but after that... I didn't know what else to do. I just kept staring at the factory and then I had to go look. I had to see if there was anything left, any sign of where the other ABB fucks went, or even what the Empire fucking _ **wanted.**_ "

Frowning then, he nodded to me. "How'd you learn to fight like that anyway? You kicked their asses. Pretty much." He added the last after a momentary thought.

"Santa Claus taught me," I replied maybe a little too sharply before catching myself. "Never mind, shit. This is just... just stay out of that place."

Turning on my heel, I started to walk away from him, asking myself what was wrong with me. Before I had taken more than three steps however, the kid called out. "Wait! Wait a minute."

Reluctantly, I looked back at him. He looked indecisive for a moment before heaving a sigh. "I'm... Bryce. Bryce Kiley."

Biting my lip hard as I hesitated for several long seconds, I finally said, "Sophia. And now that we're all introduced, I'll catch you later." After a moment I remembered to add rather awkwardly, "Sorry about your sister."

"Yeah, me too." His tone was dark. "But sorry won't make those fucks pay."

"So go to the Protectorate." I shrugged. "It's kind of their job."

"Screw the Protectorate!" He shouted back at me. "If they did their job right, this wouldn't have happened. Sierra would still be alive if it wasn't for those screw-ups."

Some part of me thought I should probably be offended on the behalf of my teammates and supposed mentors. Instead, I just shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"That was the idea," he replied. "I was going to 'suit myself' and go deal with those fucks. But I don't have any training, any skills. I have these plans in my head. Every time I close my eyes I see all these ideas about weapons, suits, things I can build and how to put them all together. But even if I build it, I don't have any training. I'll lose."

"I'm sorry." I meant it that time. "I... know what it's like to feel helpless, to feel like you can't fix a problem."

His eyes were on me. "Yeah? Then help me."

I blinked at that, blankly. "Huh?"

"You're black, so you must hate the Empire, right?" Bryce's voice rose with his eagerness.

I shrugged. "Sure, I guess. They're racist fucks, what's your point?"

"And you know how to fight." The boy raised both hands as if it was self-explanatory. "I'm a tinker, so I can build weapons and stuff. But I don't have any training or anything. You know how to fight. I can make weapons and equipment and stuff _**for you!**_ "

My mouth fell open then, and I made a strange noise. "Huhhh?"

"See? It'll work," Bryce insisted. "I can make stuff for you to use. Who says a tinker has to use their own equipment, huh? I'll make weapons and armor and you can take those fuckers down. You'll like beating the shit out of those racist Empire douchenozzles anyway."

"You **just** fucking met me sixty seconds ago," I shot back at him. "And all of a sudden you want to be buddy buddy cape heroes with me?"

This was confusing, and moving way too fast. I'd just wanted to stop the kid from getting caught by those ABB thugs, and all of a sudden he was recruiting me to be his instrument of vengeance for the death of his sister?

"You can fight," he replied. "I can tinker. You had to be in there for some reason, right? You're not Asian, and you're black. So you couldn't be with either of those gangs. Plus you ran from the cops. I bet you were looking for something to get at them too. Here's your way to get at them. Let me build stuff for you. Please? For my sister. I just want those motherfuckers to pay for what they did."

For a long moment, I stared at the boy. This was ridiculous. What was I supposed to do, be _another_ cape on top of being Shadow Stalker? Play double duty? Be a good little Ward and obey the rules as Shadow Stalker, while investigating the Empire, and finding my way to Alabaster under a **different** guise? Could I do that? Was it possible?

The boy continued to stare at me, and I realized something else. Whatever I did, this kid was going to find a way to attack those gangs. He was hurting so bad right now after what happened to his sister, and was so mindlessly grief-stricken that he'd tinkered himself a pair of cheap little electro-gloves or whatever and nearly gotten himself killed immediately. Whatever I chose to do, he wasn't going to stop.

"Okay," I said after several long seconds of silence. "Tell me what you can build."

Because fuck it. If Piggyfuck wouldn't let me go after the Empire as Shadow Stalker, I'd do it as someone else. Being Shadow Stalker wasn't exactly fun anymore anyway.

And if doing so got this kid the revenge that he wanted, so be it. Everyone deserved a little bit of vengeance sometimes.

 **3-06 – Emma**

Two hours later, I was pacing back and forth on the roof of one of those big international warehouse style toy stores that had gone out of business about two years earlier. It was situated on the southern edge of the docks area, and had been part of some big push to bring legitimate businesses into neighborhood in order to give people a source of income. The place had been robbed three times in the same number of months before shutting down. There had been some weak attempts to put something else in it, but all had fallen through, and the store had been vacant for so long that most people didn't even notice it anymore. It was just part of the background that people drove past. If the entire building disappeared entirely, it would probably take a few days for anyone to notice. It was just sort of there.

After ensuring that I wasn't kidding back on the phone, Tattletale had said that she needed time to talk to her team and their 'boss', whoever that was. I'd spent the intervening time doing a lot of thinking while I got myself something to eat (in civilian clothes, of course). Finally, about half an hour earlier, she'd called me back and asked to meet here on top of this building so we could chat in person.

So here I was, the same place I'd been standing for the last ten minutes as I waited for Tattletale to show up. Though, to be fair, the negative part of me would be surprised if she even showed up. After all, I'd made it clear to them the night before that I meant to be a hero. Calling them up the next day with an invitation to help commit a felony was _probably_ going to set off a few internal alarms.

After cracking my neck from side to side, I had just resumed pacing when a voice spoke up from not even six feet away from me. "Hah! And that is ten minutes exactly."

I'd had dance and gymnastics training of course. So it was with authority that I could say that my resulting leap-spin-trip-stumble-sprawl was potentially the **least** graceful looking reaction anyone has ever had in the history of everything. And that's not even counting the noise that burst from my mouth, which sounded like the terrified squawk of a chicken being taught to surf entirely against its will. In the end, I was on my side on the roof, staring up at the empty air that had spoken.

Before I could convince myself that I reallyhad gone crazy, the air shimmered briefly, like the nearly-still water of a pond. A silver-colored fabric came into view as if pressing up through that 'water', sweeping aside to reveal Tattletale, Nimue, and Regent standing pretty much directly over me.

"Ten minutes, dude." Nimue was saying to Regent. While she spoke, the girl flipped the top hat off her head and gave the silvery cloth a push inside. The cloth fell into the hat, which seemed entirely too small to hold it. That done, the girl turned the hat over a few times and shook it to show that there seemed to be nothing inside, before returning it to her head while continuing to address Regent. "You said ten minutes and she'd take off." She held her gloved hand out expectantly until the boy placed a twenty dollar bill into her palm. Then she held the bill up, gave a twist of her hand, and it was gone.

"You," I was catching up now, both mentally and as far as my breathing was concerned. "You were betting on whether or not I'd stick around if you made me wait?"

For his part, Regent didn't look the least bit bothered. I had a feeling not much _could_ bother the guy. So far, he'd come off as a person with very few concerns and even less shame. "No offense," he replied without inflection. "But I figured if you flake on being a hero after the first night, you'd probably flake pretty soon if we made you wait here too long. Maybe try your hand at being a rogue or something."

I flinched at his words, but before I could say anything, Tattletale spoke up. "This wasn't about testing how long you'd wait, Redshift. It was about making sure you weren't followed, or..." She trailed off.

Realizing what she was getting at, I finished it for her. "Or making sure that I wasn't leading the heroes right to you, maybe as some kind of audition for the Wards or something. You thought I might have tried to get onto their good side by betraying you guys to show that I was one of them."

"It was a possibility." That voice came from the opposite side of the roof, and I turned to find Grue standing with Bitch near the fire escape. The latter looked about as happy to see me as I'd imagined she would be, somehow managing to shoot a death glare at me from behind a plastic dog mask.

Grue continued, ignoring the look that Bitch was sending me. "We had to check, so they've been keeping an eye on you while Bitch and I scoured the area to see if there were any Wards hiding out, waiting for your signal. We figured if Bitch and her dogs couldn't point out anyone that blew your story, that'd be a pretty good indication that you might be legitimate."

I couldn't blame them for checking up on me, not really. It felt awkward to think that they had been standing there under that invisibility cloak just watching me pace around and talk to myself, but I still couldn't really hold it against them. The idea that I might be trying to get them arrested made sense.

"See?" Regent put in then. "Puts my whole 'she'll just quit this in ten minutes too' thing in perspective, doesn't it? At least I figured you were legit. Wishy-washy, but legit."

"Can we not call our potential new ally wishy-washy, Regent?" Grue asked while stepping forward.

"It's okay," I shrugged. "I get it. It's a bit out of nowhere." Besides, if I started throwing stones about the whole being teased thing, my glass house was going to come shattering down on top of me. I had so little of a leg to stand on as far as that went that it was probably somewhere up around my rib cage.

"Yeah, a bit." Grue nodded, and it was clear even through his motorcycle helmet that he was studying me intently. "So, before we go any further, would you be all right with answering a couple of questions from Tattletale? Just to make sure everything's still kosher."

"Err, sure." I blinked and looked at the girl. "Is that your power? Making sure people tell the truth?"

"Not exactly. But close enough in this instance." She gave me a vulpine smile while stepping closer, so that she was on one side of me and Grue was on the opposite. I turned to face her fully, and she asked, "Have you talked to anyone in authority about what happened last night?"

I shook my head quickly. "No, I haven't talked to anyone about what happened last night. There's not... a lot of people that I talk to these days anyway, and definitely not about this."

"So no one besides you knows that you're here?" I saw the calculation behind her green eyes. It wasn't enough to make me think that I was in danger or anything, but she was definitely thinking intently.

After a brief hesitation, I shook my head again. "No. This is just me. When I was trying to be a hero, it was just me, and this is just me too. No one else knows about my powers or what I'm doing. And before you ask, I haven't had any contact with the Wards, the Protectorate, the PRT, or anyone like that."

She nodded to that, considering for another second before asking, "What made you change your mind about being a hero? Specifically, what changed your mind in the brief time between when I called you earlier, and when you called me back? Because Bitch thought you went to talk to the Wards and they told you what you had to do to prove you could be trusted."

I blanched at that. "No, I swear. It wasn't anything like that. I just..." Trailing off, I tried to think of how I could make them understand without giving too much away about Taylor. I didn't deserve any privacy or consideration, but the Heberts did. If I pulled this off and got them their house back, I didn't want to have accidentally connected them to a bunch of super villains.

Which of course begged the question of how I was going to get the money or the house to them without announcing that connection, but it was a bridge I figured I could cross in the future. Right now I just needed the means to _get_ that money together, and to hurt the other people who had screwed them over.

Finally, after several seconds of silence, I continued. "I've been trying to be a hero to make up for something I did, something that really hurt someone that didn't deserve it. Only I just found out that the only way I can make it up to them is to do some bad things. The system failed them. Part of that was my fault, my family's fault. I have to try to fix it, even if that means I don't get to be a hero."

"The insurance company you want to steal from?" Tattletale prompted, her voice fairly neutral.

I nodded. "They didn't pay when they should have. The people that I helped hurt lost their home. I have to get it back for them. Not just a house, _**that**_ house. It's important. And that's why I want to do this. Because I'd rather be a villain and help people like that, people who need it, than be a hero and cover up for-" I stopped myself, flinching inwardly after saying too much.

For her part, Tattletale simply tilted her head. Rather than prompt me to finish, she just said, "Ah."

"So are we clear then?" Grue asked, reminding me that he was right at my back. It felt a bit awkward having him so close to me, but I didn't want to ask him to move either. I knew what they were doing. If I'd failed any part of Tattletale's test, he was a big enough guy that he could probably put me on the ground before I could pull anything. Especially from that position.

"We're good," Tattletale confirmed, easing back a couple of steps. "And so is she." Her head nodded toward me. "She's telling the truth. All of this was about making up for a mistake that got someone hurt, and now she thinks the best way to do that is by switching sides." To me, she added, "And for the record, your story isn't that different from some of ours. We all have our reasons for being here."

"Like me." That was Grue's voice, but it sounded different somehow. I turned to find that he had taken the helmet off. Beneath it was a handsome, dark-skinned older guy in the last vestiges of his teens, who wore his hair in shoulder-length cornrows. He had the helmet tucked under his arm. "Brian," he said while offering his hand to me. "If we're gonna do this, we might as well do it face to face."

Even as I hesitantly accepted his hand, Regent was moving into view. His hand moved to his mask and he plucked it away, revealing a face that immediately made my heart speed up in spite of myself. Grue, or Brian or whatever, was handsome in a heavily masculine sort of way, but Regent was that almost pretty type of hot. The full head of thick, gorgeous black curled hair that I'd noticed before went so well with his full, slightly sulky lips and pale blue eyes that if someone had told me he was part of a boy band, I totally would have believed them.

"Alec," he said easily, his smirk silently adding that he'd caught me looking at him that way. It was obviously something he was used to. Iwas accustomed to receiving that sort of look, not giving it. Being on the other end of the 'you were totally checking me out' expression was a new experience.

"Rachel?" Grue prompted, looking back toward Bitch pointedly.

She pulled the cheap little dog mask aside with a dismissive snort. "Whatever." Her voice was some mixture of annoyed and simultaneously uncaring as her somewhat butch, square face was revealed. The shape of her nose made it clear that she'd been hit before hard enough to break it, probably more than once. "Don't know why I wear that anyway. Stupid, they know who I am."

Before I could voice my confusion at that, Tattletale came around into view. She had already taken away her own domino mask, and I saw how well even that little thing served to conceal her features. Without it, there was a smattering of light freckles across her face that had been completely hidden by the mask. It also served to somewhat conceal the overall shape of her face.

"She means the PRT knows who she is," Tattletale explained. "She's one of the 'out' capes. Has been pretty much since she got her power.

She started to say something else, but I snapped my fingers first. "I knew it! I knew I'd heard of a girl that could make dogs into big monster things traveling over the—uhhhlp?"

My last words were cut off as Rachel stormed right up into my face. Her finger was raised. "Fuck you. They're not monsters. You're just a stupid-"

She was bodily shoved aside by Brian, who gruffly told her, "It's a figure of speech, Rachel. She didn't mean any kind of insult by it. Calm down."

For a moment, I thought that the other girl was going to throw a punch. Instead, she just stepped away and folded her arms over her chest, looking unhappy with the whole situation.

Pressing on, Tattletale drew my attention to her with a little wave. "I'm Lisa. Don't worry about Rachel. Asking her to accept not just one, but two new members is a lot. Speaking of which, your turn, Tyler?"

My head whipped up and around while another startled noise escaped me before my brain caught up with itself and realized that she hadn't said the name that I'd thought she did. My suddenly racing heart got itself back under control, and I had to make myself breathe normally. Of course she hadn't said _Taylor._ And even if she had, it wouldn't be that one. The idea of Taylor being a cape was... well the fact that it was so impossible was pretty sad, really. I would have preferred that **she** have gotten powers instead of me. If there was any justice in this world, she would have. Instead, she was trapped in a bed somewhere, unable to even move herself.

"Oooh," Nimue was grinning. "See how excited she is for _my_ introduction? Told you she liked me." Sliding the silver half-mask off her face, she gave a practiced bow while adding a sweep of her black and purple cape. "Tyler Quinlan, here to please and amaze. Preferably both at the same time."

She straightened then, giving me my first good look at her face. I'd thought before that she was white given what I'd seen of her skin. Without however, I could see that the girl was actually Asian. She was also, objectively speaking, gorgeous. Nimue had that exotic look that so many people were into.

"Quinlan?" I echoed the girl's announcement of her name. "Sounds like my old math teacher."

"Yup, that's my step-father," she confirmed. "Mommy dearest decided to move us across the country and marry him about three months ago. Which, for the record, was about a month after they met online. But eh, she's happy, so whatevs. Besides, I got a new last name out of the deal. Which isn't bad. Face it, anything's a step up from Edmund. Can you imagine trying to sound cool with a name like that Tyler Edmund?"

I blinked at that. "Your last name was Edmund? But you're... I mean you look, I mean." My eyes widened. "Never mind, I wasn't—I mean, that was a really stupid thought."

"Nah," She shrugged easily. "Don't worry about it. My _**real**_ original last name was Pyeon. But uhh, let's just say mommy dearest goes through husbands _enthusiastically_. And whenever she gets a new husband, I get a legal name change. Part of acclimating to the new life, she says. Personally, I think we're on the run from the Kkangpae and she doesn't want me to know about it."

"The... Kkangpae?" I echoed uncertainly.

"South Korean mafia, basically." She smiled easily at me. "Don't worry, if they catch up with us, I'll distract them with my awesome while you run away." Winking, Tyler added, "As long as you give me a kiss first, for luck."

I blushed even more at that. "Oh, uhh, right. You're into girls."

Her reply was a languid shrug. "Girls, guys, whatever. Dude, the way I see it, what's the point of walking through the amusement park of life if you're only willing to try half the rides?"

Clearing his throat then, Brian spoke up. "Well, now that we're all introduced to you..."

Realizing what he meant, I reached up to tug my own mask off. "Right, sorry." Pulling it free, I cleared my throat. "Emma. I'm umm, Emma Barnes. Thanks for giving me a chance."

Nodding at that, Brian gestured. "Well, if we're gonna talk about you joining the team, there's one thing you should know before we go on."

"What's that?" I asked hesitantly.

"We'll talk about the insurance job you want to pull," he replied. "But first the boss wants us to do something else. Sort of a test run before we go with what **you** want to do."

"Who is this boss anyway?" I asked then, realizing that they hadn't said much about him.

Tattletale shook her head in answer. "He prefers to remain anonymous. But the point is, if you help us with this other job that the boss wants, then we can focus on the insurance thing."

Biting my lip as I held onto my mask, I asked carefully, "What kind of job? I... I don't want to do anything that'll hurt anyone or... or steal from anyone who can't afford it. I can't make up for what I did by hurting other people."

"Nothing like that," Lisa promised. "No, the boss wants us to hit an armored car. It should be simple and quick, especially with your powers to help. We block the street, get in the back of the thing and take what they're hauling, then out again and get away. Easy as that."

"An armored car?" My throat was dry. "Like from a bank?"

Her head shook. "Nah, nothing like that. We leave banks alone. The vehicle we're supposed to hit belongs to Medhall, the pharmaceutical company. You heard of them, right?" When I nodded, she continued. "We're just supposed to steal some records or something that the armored car's carrying. The boss really wants those records. So if you help us do this, he'll be more willing to provide support and materials for whatever job you want to pull."

This was it. They wanted me to commit _another_ crime before I could start getting Taylor the justice she deserved. Maybe I should have waited longer, thought it through more. But I didn't. All I knew was that I **had** to do this. No matter what it cost me, Taylor and her father deserved better.

"Okay," I said, looking at the unmasked Undersiders while a rush of anxiety mixed with the thrill of actually _**doing something**_ filled me. "I'm in."

 **3-07 – Taylor**

It took several hours before my father was comfortable letting Faultline take me. Actually, I'm sure he wasn't comfortable at all, but she told him that the sooner we could get to work, the sooner I might progress enough to figure out how to deal with my power so I could interact somewhat normally.

Dad spent most of that time trying to apologize for not having known the extent of what was going on during the worst two years of my life. He blamed himself repeatedly in spite of my far-too-belated protests, and nothing my raised arm could do would convince him otherwise. Seeing how torn up he was, how ruined my father had become, just made me hate those fucking bitches even more.

Finally, Faultline and Dad lifted me from the couch and set me into the wheelchair that had clearly been taken from the hospital. I watched through my father's eyes as he turned to the woman. "Are you sure I shouldn't come with you right now? Just to make sure she's settled and... and everything."

"She'll be fine, Mr. Hebert," Faultline assured him once more. "It'll be better for everyone if we say goodbye here for now. You know where we're staying, so you know where she'll be. You have the phone number and the address, and the right people know to let you in if you need to visit. You can come by any time you want to, as long as you make sure we're around first. If we have to leave town for business, we will let you know. Trust me, we know what we're doing." That settled, she pressed on. "Now, you know what to say to anyone who asks about Taylor's whereabouts?"

Being in someone else's head when they nodded was an awkward experience. It was almost like the sick feeling that came from too much shaky camera in those found footage movies. This time, I felt queasy as my father gave that too-fast nod. "She's being taken care of by a professional nurse who is a friend of the family on my wife's side."

"Exactly," Faultline didn't exactly smile, but she did look somewhat approving. Patting the back of my wheelchair, she added, "I'll give you guys a few minutes and wait in the hall. Take your time. I'll call and our ride know to come around and wait for us."

My view jumped back out to an all-around vision as Dad knelt in front of me, laying both hands on top of mine. "Taylor," he said quietly and urgently. "I don't know if this is the right thing to do. I just don't know, but she's been the only one that could get any reaction out of you at all. She's done the best, the only real good that I've seen. And you say you want to go with her, so I'll listen. But you listen to me, Taylor. Right here, you listen. If you want to leave, if you get uncomfortable with any of it, any time, you tell me. You tell me you want to go and I'll get you the hell out of there."

Taking my right hand, he worked my index and middle finger up and apart, a peace sign. "This, Taylor. You make this sign, any time, and I'll know you're done. Understand me? You make this sign and I will get you out of there. I swear it, Taylor. You and me, we'll figure out something else if we have to, but don't you dare put up with anything that bad again without telling me. We'll work it out together. You make that sign if you need to. Promise me. You raise your yes hand if you promise, Taylor."

It took seven minutes, but I finally got my hand to raise up. Seeing it, Dad's eyes closed briefly before he took my hand and kissed it gently. "Be careful, kid. Please, please be careful."

After one more hug that I failed to return, he rose and wheeled me to the door. Faultline promised again that we would be careful and that someone would call him later that evening before starting to wheel me away. As I was rolled down the hall, my vision jumped back to my father again so that I could watch through his eyes as Faultline and I disappeared into the elevator at the end of the corridor. It also meant that I could feel his worry, his fear, and his exhaustion as he continued to stand there for several minutes after the elevator had already departed.

"-the club?" The voice came suddenly as my view jumped back to my body. After a moment of disorientation, I realized that I was sitting in the back seat of a van, the wheelchair folded up on the floor nearby. Apparently I had tuned out long enough that Faultline and I had made it all the way out of the building by the time my attention returned. I flinched at the thought, wondering what I had missed.

The voice, I realized, belonged to the girl in the driver's seat of the van. She had thick, curly brown hair and a dense curtain of freckles over her face. Faultline sat beside her, looking back at me thoughtfully. "Yes, let's head back." She sounded distracted, watching me intently. "Hmm."

"Something wrong?" Emily, I realized now going by the voice, asked while setting the van in motion.

Faultline's head shook. "I'm waiting for a response. Give her time, she'll get to it."

Oh crap. She'd said something or asked something on the way down and now I had no idea what it was. My attention had lingered on my father, and Faultline still didn't understand my power enough to know how that worked. How could I explain it? How could I even try to make her understand my problem when I only had the ability to answer yes or no with a raise of either hand?

The frustration mounted in me for a few moments, before I focused once more. We had only established yes or no answers, so I'd answer another way and hope she understood. Instead of lifting one hand or the other, I focused on raising both of my arms at the same time.

The van was well away from my father's apartment by the time I managed to get both arms up. As they raised high together, Faultline noticed and lifted an eyebrow. "Hmm, the question was just about whether you were hungry or not, so... does that mean 'sort of' or something else? Right hand if it means you're kind of hungry, left hand if it means you didn't know what I asked."

She waited until my left hand was up, then made a thoughtful noise. "I wonder... hmm, that could explain a few other things, possibly. All right, we'll figure it out."

"She's good at figuring out powers," Emily added from the driver's seat, smiling into the review view mirror at my body. "I haven't had mine for that long and she's done a lot to help me already."

We did end up stopping for food, and my stomach made its continued presence known with a loud grumble that actually made Emily giggle. Faultline tore a bit of my sandwich off and held it up to my mouth, which opened to accept it on autopilot. It wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last, that I was grateful that despite every other limit of my condition, there were certain things I could still do.

"Your chewing is immediate," Faultline observed thoughtfully. "And seems automatic. I wonder, can you make yourself _stop_ chewing? Give it a shot." She held the sandwich up to my mouth and waited.

My mouth started to open, but I fought back and forced it to stop. Miraculously, it did. I stopped eating just because I chose to. I **chose** to stop eating. That was such a pathetic victory that I sighed internally.

That annoyance faded easily, however, as Faultline pressed on. "Good, good. Now just to make sure that you're controlling it, start eating again."

By the time the van stopped, Faultline had repeatedly gotten me to start and stop eating just to prove without a doubt that it was one thing that I had full control over. The sandwich was completely gone before she was satisfied, and she ended up feeding me part of hers just to keep her testing going.

My vision jumped to Emily as she stepped out of the van, and I saw her gaze move across the nearby building, taking in the glowing yellow letters that spelled out the name 'Palanquin'.

It was a nightclub, I realized after a moment. Was this our destination? Did the club belong to them, or were they just staying here, or what? I knew that Brockton Bay was pretty much their home city even though they tended to move around a fair bit, but I'd never really put too much thought into where a group like this would have to live in order to avoid attracting attention. It wasn't as if Newter or Gregor could go around without being recognized, after all. A busy, loud night club would be one of the best ways to avoid attention, and mask the sounds of loud training. People coming and going a lot and at odd hours wouldn't be noticed, and it would pay for itself without too much input as long as their employees were competent at their jobs. It all made sense.

Meanwhile, Faultline and Emily had pulled out my wheelchair and got it set up before pulling my body down and somewhat awkwardly deposited me in it. Then I was being wheeled around to the backdoor where Faultline keyed in a code before gesturing for Emily to give me a push up and into the building.

I'd never really been in a night club before, and I was pretty sure this didn't count anyway. It was too early for anyone to be around, and I just saw brightly lit rooms that were apparently dance floors at night. Now, however, they just looked simple and empty. A single man in the corner of one was sweeping up some discarded trash. He looked over, saw who was there, and turned his attention back to his work without saying a word or raising as much as an eyebrow.

Eventually, we reached a stairwell. Gregor was standing nearby, clearly waiting for us. There was a girl, a year or two younger than me, standing beside him. Her brown hair was worn short, and she was a pale little thing whose hard expression was at odds with her apparent youth.

"Gregor, Olivia." Faultline greeted them. "Is everything all right?"

The younger girl's scowl was turned her way. "Hey, I told you to call me Mockshow, not Olivia. Don't think that just because you're giving me a place to crash that I have to be all beholden to you now. I can always leave if I want to." For a brief second, her bravado dropped slightly. "You said..."

"Dear Faultline means no disrespect." Gregor spoke up in his accented voice while putting a hand on Olivia/Mockshow's shoulder. "She is only attempting to be personable, Mockshow. And you should not abandon your given name so completely. It is worth more than you may know."

"I know, I get it. You don't know who you are." The girl shrugged her shoulder out of the man's grip and stepped away. "Sucks ass. But _**I**_ know where I come from. I know who my family is, and they're worthless. So don't fucking remind me of them anymore, kay? I'm Mockshow, not Olivia."

"Understood," Faultline gave a simple nod before adding, "Now go outside and do ten laps." When Mockshow/Olivia looked like she was about to protest, the woman pointed. "Ten laps, Mockshow."

Sighing, the girl grumbled but obeyed, heading for the door. At a nod from Faultline, Emily followed after her, both of them disappearing through the door and into the parking lot.

"She is still a child," Gregor announced, clearly for my benefit. "And often behaves as such."

"She'll get better," Faultline replied. "She's already been useful. She just needs time and discipline." Her gaze flicked toward me. "It's only been a few weeks since we found her outside of Chicago."

Gregor actually smiled a little bit, which looked a bit odd with his translucent skin. "To be precise, she found us, by staging an attack against one of the facilities we had been hired to protect."

"We stopped her, same as we'd stop anyone else." Faultline finished for him while looking at my body. "Turned out she was testing her new powers and thought it'd be fun to steal from our client."

Gregor gave a serious nod. "And so now she is here, staying with us. She refuses to tell us more of herself aside from her apparent dissatisfaction with her family that drove her to run away from home."

"We don't need to know more than that for now." Faultline put a hand on my shoulder. "And speaking of now, I need to leave you here with Gregor for awhile. I have to return a phone call that I've been putting off. You'll be fine here. Just meet everyone officially. I've also got a few ideas of how to give you some better communication capability, but I need to have someone run them down after I make that call."

Gregor put his hands on the wheelchair and nodded. "We will ensure that everyone is introduced now that the situation is not quite so... chaotic. Go and do what you must." He began to wheel me to what looked like a curtained wall near the stairs, only to move the curtain aside to reveal a small elevator.

Faultline left, and my view stayed with her long enough for her to look out a window to see Emily and Mockshow both running laps around the parking lot. In spite of her declaration that she would just leave if she wanted to, I had noticed that Mockshow didn't hesitate to obey Faultline's order. And it was clear from the brief glimpse that I got that that she wasn't half-assing it either. The two of them were both genuinely sprinting.

My vision jumped back to what was obviously Gregor's gaze as he pushed me out of the elevator and into a hallway, proceeding to a door near the end of the room. "This has been Mockshow's sole room, but it is meant for two. You will stay here with her whenever we are in town and you are not staying with your father." Pushing the door open, he gave the wheelchair a push, leading us into what looked like a large dorm room. There were two queen sized beds, one of them covered in fast food wrappers, an MP3 player, a calculator, a few books, and a half-empty two liter bottle of cola. The other was bare.

That side of the room was not, however, completely empty. There was a girl standing near an oscillating floor fan that had been set into the corner, her white-blonde hair blown by the moving fan.

"Ah, Elle. I didn't realize that we were interrupting anything." Gregor spoke, but the girl didn't pay any attention. Her gaze was locked rigidly on the fan, as if it was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. Also, I realized with some confusion, about half of the wall next to her looked like it was made of rock.

Before I could see what happened next, or even start to understand why the wall of the room looked like part of a mountain, my vision jumped.

I was standing on a ledge, an expanse of open air stretched out before me. The clouds could be seen far below, giving some idea of how high up I stood. The wind against my face was harsh and cold, seeming to cut into my skin sharply with each gust.

The ledge was narrow enough that a single misstep would have meant an inescapable plummet, but the feeling I had in the head that my thoughts were occupying was not one of fear, but wonder. Whoever was seeing this, wherever I happened to be, was delighted and amazed by the sight. There was no _fear_ at all. She was happy here, if a bit confused as to how she'd come to this point.

And it was a she, I knew. Elle. Labyrinth, the girl I'd seen last night. Was this what she was seeing when she stared into that fan? What _exactly_ was her power?

I let myself go a bit, experiencing what she felt. I couldn't read her mind, exactly. I didn't know her thoughts, but I knew her emotions, her feelings. She was hungry, and a bit tired, but overall, the biggest feeling that I experienced was trust. She knew she was home, that whatever she was seeing now, her body was _home_ , and home was safe. She didn't always have control of herself, didn't always know what was happening in the real world, but she **felt** that the people who took care of her could be trusted. She knew that they would protect her, and she would do anything to protect them in turn. Here, in the place that her body was, she didn't have to be afraid of people finding out what she could do and either hating or being afraid of her. She didn't have to worry about becoming coherent and finding herself strapped to a bed because she'd accidentally let the wrong person see her powers in action.

Exactly how I was getting so much more information from her, to the point of very _**nearly**_ reading her thoughts, I couldn't begin to guess. It was still feelings, just emotions and such, but they were so detailed and nuanced that they almost might as well have been words spoken in my head.

"Hello." The soft, gentle voice spoke aloud against the wind. "Are you here with me?"

Could she actually sense my presence? I wished I could answer her.

"But you just did."

So startled was I by those words that my vision leapt back out of the girl, returning to a three hundred and sixty degree panorama vision of my new room. Elle was facing the wheelchair now, looking at me curiously.

"Elle?" Gregor looked as if he might have raised an eyebrow if he'd actually had any. "Is who where with you?"

"Here with me." The blonde girl lifted her hand to point at me. "And there. Here and there."

I... could actually communicate? Elle knew what I was thinking when I was connected to her? Was that possible? Why didn't it work that way with anyone else? What was going on? My mind was reeling, and it was obvious that Gregor didn't really understand what had just happened.

Before I could question that too much, the door opened and Faultline came in. "Briefing in ten minutes." She paused before adding. "Taylor can come too. It'll be good for her to sit in on one of these."

"We have a job?" Gregor asked, distracted away from trying to figure out what had happened between Elle and me.

"Yeah," Faultline nodded. "That call I had to return was to the CEO of Medhall. Apparently he has reason to believe that some delivery he's trying to make is in danger. He's retaining us to keep an eye on the convoy and make sure no one interferes with it."

"A delivery that requires our level of assistance?" Gregor seemed to consider that for a moment. "Do you believe that he is being paranoid?"

Faultline shook her head. "I don't know, but he's paying well and he says his source is never wrong. She was apparently fairly specific about the time and location, as well as the fact that we'll be dealing with capes."

"Well then." I felt Gregor's hand come down on my shoulder as he spoke. "I suppose if his source is truly impeccable, we will be prepared for whoever attempts such a theft."

"Yes," Faultline agreed with a simple nod. "We'll be ready. And we'll teach them not to attempt anything like that in the future."

 **Interlude 3A – Paracosm**

"Tag, Myriad, are you in position?"

The voice of Aevum, whom Jess Carmen would always know better as Noelle, came both through the earbud she wore in her left ear, and from her right side where the girl in question sat. The millisecond delay between hearing it live from Noelle herself and then through her communicator provided a slight echo effect that, even after all this time, still made her feel like she needed to pop her ears.

She and Aevum were sitting in the back of an unremarkable looking van that was parked behind an apartment building. While the outside looked mundane, the inside was a veritable treasure trove of technology. Computers and various other monitoring equipment lined both walls, and the slot where Jess's wheelchair was set was surrounded on three sides by keyboards and other input devices.

Both girls wore costumes, though Jess's was exceedingly simple. Her 'costume' was limited to a simple black mask that covered her entire head and served mostly to make sure that no one could connect her face to her companions. It was just safer that way considering how much her wheelchair stood out.

Noelle, on the other hand, wore what was essentially a ninja's costume. It had begun life as exactly that, an old ninja costume meant for Halloween. Noelle had had it modified, adding body armor to key locations that padded it out, and had the color scheme changed from solid white to black and dark blue. Rather than the simple cloth mask, Noelle wore a black helmet that conformed to her head with a matching opaque visor that could be flipped up to reveal her eyes, while the front lower half of the helmet consisted of a blue mesh that allowed her to speak without having her voice muffled.

"Ready and waiting," Marissa, or in this case, Myriad, replied to Aevum's question. "First through fifth floors are clear. I'm at each end of every corridor. Nobody's moving."

Luke/Tag added his own answer then, "No one's on the roof but me and a really annoying pigeon."

"Entropy?" Noelle prompted the final member of their team once the building was deemed clear.

"Their car's taken care of," Francis Krouse replied. Jess knew without looking at the monitor that kept track of all their positions that Entropy was in the parking garage connected to the apartment building.

"Seems too easy," Noelle murmured to herself. "Way too easy. No one on the roof? Huge mistake."

Looking to the other brunette, Jess could almost see the information scrolling across her friend's eyes as she mentally double-checked everything. Wincing, she reached out to put a hand on Noelle's arm. "Hey, we've got 'em this time. They can't always be ready for us. They don't even know we're in town."

"Doesn't matter," Noelle insisted, the worry and second-guessing in her voice obvious. "Look, how many times have we _almost_ had this bounty in the last three months?"

"Three," Jess acknowledged with a wince. "Four if you count that first time on the farm."

"I count it." Noelle's face was serious. "These guys are **always** ready. They're crazy paranoid. They know the PRT wants them brought in, and that there's a price on their heads. Plus they know we've been tracking them. They got lucky the last time, and they know it. Not having a lookout on the roof, it doesn't make sense. Being confined to one apartment, letting us get this close without tripping any alarm, registering their only vehicle with the leasing office, it's all too convenient. It's too easy."

"Are we scrapping it?" Oliver asked from the van's driver's seat straight ahead of Jess. Though he lacked both a power and codename, he was no less brave in her mind. She and the others had pushed Oliver to take some kind of name, powers or not, since he did so much to help them out anyway. He'd always declined, saying that he was happy just helping out as himself. He did, however, wear a mask similar to Jess's, for the same reason. He didn't want people to track him to get to the others.

Aevum was quiet for a few seconds then, clearly considering it. Jess knew that the other girl wouldn't hesitate to scrap a mission if she thought it was too dangerous for any of them. Even if that meant losing out on a chance to collect on a cape bounty that would keep them clothed and fed for six months.

"Wait," Noelle turned a little bit. "Tag, what was that about a pigeon being annoying?"

"Eh, it's not a big deal." Luke's tone was dismissive. "Stupid thing just won't shut the hell up. Keeps screeching its damn head off like some kind of, umm..." He trailed off then in clear realization.

"Like some kind of alarm," Noelle finished for him. "Tag, get off the roof. Entropy-"

But whatever she had been about to say was interrupted by Oliver, who pointed abruptly. "Naberius!"

Both girls' heads snapped that way to see an SUV go roaring onto the street from the apartment building next door. They only caught a glimpse of the man in the driver's seat, but his enormous figure and red skin was hard to mistake for anything else. Which meant that the other two occupants of the vehicle were undoubtedly the rest of of the trio that Jess and the others had been chasing for so long.

"God, I'm so stupid," Noelle cursed. "Of course it was too easy. Now we're out of position. Oliver, go!"

Obediently shifting the van into drive, Oliver accelerated out of the lot, rushing to keep the faster SUV in view. Thankfully, traffic meant that the other vehicle couldn't go all out. Especially if the men that were fleeing wanted to avoid attracting official attention.

Even as the van hit the street, Noelle was talking rapidly. "Tag, get Entropy and Myriad and get back to your tag-point near that gas station a quarter mile north." Where before she had sounded uncertain and doubtful, in the heat of the moment, Noelle was in her element, cool and collected.

The SUV had spotted them by that point and roared ahead, nearly sideswiping a sedan in their hurry to get around the next corner. At the same instant, three new figures abruptly appeared in the middle of the nearby gas station lot. Tag, whose costume resembled a SWAT team member save for its dark green and white color scheme, had arrived with a hand on the shoulders of Entropy and Myriad.

The costume that Krouse wore was essentially a modified jumpsuit of the kind worn by rally car drivers, with a flat black base accented with red motion lines that went off at various angles. His mask was red, covering only the top half of his face while leaving his mouth uncovered.

Meanwhile, Marissa, as Myriad, wore no costume. She had the opposite problem from the rest of them. Thanks to what had happened to the other girl's body since she took her power-granting vial, Mars had to work to hide who she was in civilian form. Ever since she'd gained her powers, the other girl's skin had appeared to be made out of pure gleaming gold. She looked like the living embodiment of the figurine on top of most trophies, and was tough enough to take a bullet to the face without flinching. Even her hair, always blonde, was now gold and so strong that it was impossible to cut. Thankfully, it also hadn't grown at all since the change had happened.

Luke's power allowed him to swap the locations of himself and any of the last three people he had touched any way he desired. Alternatively, he could jump himself and anyone he was currently touching back to any of a dozen 'tag point' locations that he had previously set.

The second that they appeared, the trio hit the ground running. It obviously wasn't hard to figure out which vehicle was fleeing the van, since the SUV had chosen that moment to hop a curb and tear off down the sidewalk in order to get around a bus that had stopped to let someone off.

Oliver spun the wheel the other way to pull into oncoming traffic, narrowly avoiding a pickup that blared their horn angrily while swerving into the next lane.

"Sorry!" The boy called through his window before pulling back to the right side of the road. The SUV, meanwhile, had pulled nearly to the end of the block before jumping back from sidewalk to street.

"Entropy, hit me!" Jess heard Marissa's voice through the com, as well as Krouse's acknowledgment. Jess watched on the monitor that showed the view behind the van as the two of them set up, and then Krouse activated the bubble around himself that would catch hold of anything that entered it and send it off in either a random direction or one of his choosing if he was concentrating on the incoming object.

Myriad took three steps forward. Upon hitting the bubble, she was launched up and forward as if she had been shot by a cannon. The gold missile that was Marissa shot over the top of the van, cleared several more cars, and passed the SUV entirely before crashing to the ground in the middle of the street two blocks further up. Marissa was, of course, unharmed as she landed on one knee with enough force to crack the pavement around her and send shattered bits of asphalt spraying around.

With the SUV careening toward her, Myriad straightened and pressed her fist into her palm. As she did so, that golden metallic skin of hers began to glow brightly. Then a pair of equally glowing, identical figures emerged from either side of the girl's form, splitting off from the original Marissa. Immediately, those two each spawned a single duplicate of their own, leaving five identical golden statue-like figures standing in the street facing down the oncoming SUV as the bright light faded.

The driver of the SUV, who had been angling the vehicle to go around Myriad, suddenly found the street full of figures that completely blocked his path. Leaning on his horn angrily, the man spun the wheel and the van twisted sideways, tires screaming in protest while the vehicle sent up smoke. It slid, nearly tipping over on top of the identical girls before three of the Myriads all leapt forward and punched the thing. Their force halted its momentum and sent it tumbling the other way, rolling side over side before coming to a stop on its roof.

Even before the SUV had screeched to a halt, Naberius made his exit. The massive, over seven foot tall red-skinned man who looked as if he belonged on the set of a horror film about the devil kicked out the driver's side door to crawl free. Flames hot enough to melt the asphalt swirled around him. He was joined belatedly by his two partners in crime. One was a tinker named Crowbar who whose chosen weapon looked identical to his namesake, even though it contained enough hidden firepower to level most of a building in short order. The other was a blaster-type, a man called Juice, whose power allowed him to create multiple arcs of electricity between himself and any object in his line of sight, catching anyone in between in the current.

Oliver brought the van to a halt, and Noelle looked toward Jess. "Can you handle the big guy?"

Nodding once, Jess brought her hands together and focused on summoning her own power.

Meanwhile, Aevum slid out of the van, using the comm to contact the others. "Paracosm will take care of Naberius. I've got Crowbar. You three put Juice on the ground."

Suiting word to action, Noelle moved straight for Crowbar. Her figure seemed to blur, moving so quickly it was hard to keep track of her. Jess knew that to Noelle, everyone _else_ had slowed down so much that they were nearly standing still, while she was moving at normal speed. At the other girl's command, time moved more slowly for her, granting her a much longer chance to react to things while she appeared to others to be moving at super speed.

By that time, the red glowing orb that Jess had been summoning was almost two feet across. Looking to the monitors once more to find the three cornered villains putting their backs to one another in order to make a fight of it, she sent the red orb flying out over Noelle's head and through the air.

Naberius saw it coming and sent a torrent of flame at the ball. The orb was unharmed, however, and before the big guy could dive out of the way, it struck him in the chest.

The instant the orb touched him, the huge demon-like figure vanished. At the same time, Jess herself vanished from inside the van. One second she was sitting in her wheelchair, staring at the monitor in order to direct her orb, and the next, she was standing on top of a hill overlooking a quaint medieval village that sat on the edge of a wide river.

Naberius stood a few feet away, eyes wide as he spun in a circle. "Wha—huh?! What the fuck?! Where am I? Where did you fucking send me, you cunt?!" He demanded, taking a step toward Jess.

Jess stood there, clad in what looked like the leather armor of a fantasy warrior. She still wore her simple mask. A sword hung off her right hip, and a red and black cloak concealed most of her figure. In here, in _this_ land, she could walk. Hell, she could run and jump and even fly if she so chose.

"I call it Avalon." Jess answered the furious man easily, ignoring the way his fire swirled around him threateningly. "It's not really that big," she continued almost conversationally before pointing. "It continues about twenty miles that way and then twenty miles the other way and so on.. This is pretty much the center, I think. I used to know the whole area like the back of my hand, but I reset the map a week ago because I wanted to see something new. Haven't really got this one memorized yet. Plus I'm still working on the village inhabitants. Do you have any idea how long it takes to program realistic-seeming NPC's even when you can do it just by thinking?"

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, bitch, but you're gonna take me home and then you and I are gonna have a long conversation that you ain't gonna enjoy much!" Naberius roared, sending his flames forward.

Jess knew that he didn't simply want to burn her. His summoned fire could be as hot as normal flame, or he could change it so that rather than burning, it would brand whoever it touched with his symbol. Anyone so marked would be forced to obey his commands. Apparently that extended to animals as well, which would explain how he'd made that pigeon serve as lookout and warn them about the Travelers arrival.

At a thought from Jess, part of the ground rose up to block Naberius's flames. Even as the control-fire was halted, she lunged forward. Her single leap took her up and over the risen rock mound, and she drew the sword from its scabbard with the sound of ringing steel.

Her foot kicked Naberius in the face with enough strength to knock him hard onto his back, and before he could recover or draw his flame back to him, she had the point of the sword pointed at his throat. "Dismiss your fire," she ordered. "Or I'll free myself from your control the hard way."

Reluctantly, and angrily, the demon-man made his fire dissipate. Jess kept her sword in place while using her other hand to reach into the bag that had appeared on the hip opposite her scabbard. Pulling forth a simple blindfold and pair of tinker-made reinforced handcuffs, both items from the real world that she had previously brought into this one with her, she tossed them down to the man. "Cuff one hand, then put on the blindfold, then roll onto your stomach."

Sighing and cursing, Naberius did as she ordered. Once he was in position, she made the ground rise up around his legs and waist to hold him steady before reaching down to pull his free hand up and into the other cuff.

Now that he was secure, Jess focused on the real world once again. As always, she was a bit reluctant to leave her fantasy-world behind, where she could not only walk, run, and jump, but was practically a goddess.

Both she and Naberius returned to where they had been when the orb struck him. She was back in her wheelchair. He, meanwhile, was back on the street, though still blindfolded and handcuffed on his stomach.

To her relief, nothing had gone wrong while she was dealing with Naberius. Both of the man's companions were on the ground and secured. Finally, they had captured the trio that had eluded them for so long. She sat back in her chair and exhaled. "Got 'em."

Turning around in his seat to look back at her, Oliver gave her a thumbs up. Before he could say anything, however, the phone beside Noelle's seat began to buzz. Jess glanced to it, then touched her earbud. "Aevum, you've got a call. Looks like your PRT contact."

"Good timing." Noelle nodded toward the three captured parahumans. "Watch these guys, I'll get their babysitters called in and then we can go celebrate with our reward money."

Walking back to the van, Noelle joined Jess and picked up the phone once again. She spoke briefly, and it was immediately obvious that their PRT contact had called about some other job, something that was urgent, apparently.

Within five minutes, Noelle had finished her call. By that time, Luke, Krouse, and one of the Marissa's had joined them at the van. The remaining Myriads were guarding the prisoners.

Krouse looked suspicious, even with his mask. Then again, Krouse was always suspicious. "What do they want now?"

Noelle glanced to him before answering. "They've got people coming to pick up our new friends. After that, they've got a job they'd like us to do."

Luke snorted. "Funny how every time we finish one job, they've got another one lined up that just has to get done right away."

"That's a good thing." Noelle informed him. "Remember what I said when we got here? What's our primary goal, other than getting home?"

Marissa answered for the others. "Make ourselves as indispensable to the PRT as possible so that even if they find out the truth about us, they need us too much to lock us up."

"Right," Noelle nodded. "And we do that by doing what the PRT and Protectorate can't, or is too busy to do. We run down their most wanted villains, the ones that split from their home towns to avoid the heat. We've done a good job at that, and now they're starting to notice. So we keep it up. We make ourselves more useful to them around than locked up in a cell."

"What's the new job?" Jess asked, curiously.

"And where are we going to do it?" Luke added.

Noelle consulted her phone briefly, where the information had apparently been sent. "Brockton Bay, that's where we're going. Apparently the mayor's niece got kidnapped by someone. They suspect capes, so they want us to help track her down and get her back."

"Rescuing a kidnapped little girl, huh?" Luke's smile was obvious. "That I could get used to."

Marissa nodded. "I just hope we get there before anything bad happens to the kid."

There was a general murmur of agreement before Noelle straightened and put her phone away once more. "All right, we hurry. But we're still celebrating tonight. This was a big catch, and they _**are**_ paying us for it.

"And then, we go Brockton Bay and track down Dinah Alcott."

 **Interlude 3B – Iron Rain**

"Hey, you heard this one? What's the difference between a crackhead and a tweaker?"

Upon hearing the voice, each of the six individuals that had been gathered around the burning trash can for warmth while carrying out their business spun that way. A handful of guns were raised by reflex, while they stared at the figure who now stood between them and the exit from the alley, feet firmly planted just in front of a small puddle of water that had collected there.

The costume that she wore looked deceptively simple, though elegant. To start, she wore jade pants that clung to her athletic figure, with silver runic designs running up the outside of either leg. Her belt was white, with a buckle that looked like a pure white polished gemstone. A single, ornately designed rapier hung from her right hip. The color scheme of her top was an inverse of the bottom, consisting of what looked like gleaming silver body armor that covered the woman from waist to throat, extending down to her wrists with an overall fit that made it clear that no expense had been spared in ensuring that her protection would not interfere with her movement capability. At the bottom right corner of her body armor, near the spot on her waist where the sword hung, began a wispy, very light green color that looked almost like a cloud. The green lines arced up diagonally toward the top left of her chest, and in that corner just before reaching her shoulder, the wispy jade lines coalesced into the shape of a female figure wielding a sword. Her gloves were silver on the back, with green on inside of the hand.

Finally, the woman wore a silver helmet that formed into a crown-like shape at the top, with black lenses over her eyes, and a pair of small, diagonal green lines near her mouth that illustrated where the vents that allowed her to breathe more easily, and to speak without her voice being too muffled were.

"Hey, hey, hey!" The nearest man, whose raised pistol shook with each word, blurted. "We ain't got no trouble with you, ya Nazi bitch! Just back the fuck off, ey? No need for this to get all physical."

"Less o'course you like the idea of getting' physical!" One of the other men, whose survival instinct had clearly been buried in a shallow grave years earlier, called out. "Screwing Iron Rain'll do wonders for my rep." He made a gesture with his hand toward that specific part of his anatomy.

Rather than showing offense or disgust, the woman prompted with a voice that was as casual as her stance, "Anybody? Come on, I figure one of you has to have heard this one by now. No one? Well, fine. The difference is that a crackhead will steal all your shit and you'll never see them again. But the tweaker will steal all your shit and then help you look for it."

"Oh come on." Spreading both arms wide when there was no reaction, the woman shook her head. "Not even a giggle?" She sighed and shook her head regretfully. "Too bad, I really thought you guys might like to laugh a little bit one last time before you end up in the hospital. I'm a giver that way."

"The fuck you bothering us for?!" One of the other men, a tad hysterical, demanded. "Thought you split from the Empire. You and that Purity chick both. Probably going lesbo on each other too, couple of repressed Nazi cunts." The way his gun shook illustrated the flimsiness of his bravado.

Still showing no apparent reaction to the insinuations, far too controlled to rise to that kind of bait, Iron Rain smiled behind her helmet before replying casually. "Oh, we're not part of the Empire, that's true. But you know, I must have scoured the Neo-Nazi handbook front to back a dozen times and pffft, I just cannot find where it says that quitting the organization means you have to ignore the drug-pushing losers camped out on your territory. It was probably amended out in the last revision. They're always doing shit like that. Last time it was to say it was now okay to see movies made by Jews. I mean, to be fair they kinda **had** to change that since it limited our film library to war footage and old Disney movies. Yeah, Walt was a huge old racist dickbag. I was totally surprised too."

"Y-you talk too much!" One of the men sputtered. "You're fucking stalling, huh?! We can take her!"

"Nah." Casually shaking her head, Iron Rain replied, "You really can't." Spreading her arms wide once more, she added, "But you're welcome to try if you insist. I'll give you to the count of ten before I move a muscle. See, I'll even cover my eyes to make it more fair." Moving her right hand over her face, she began to count aloud. "One... two... three..."

Two of the men bolted and began to run past her, intent on escaping rather than taking her offer of a free shot. The man who had claimed that she was stalling raised his gun, using both hands to steady it while sighting in. He was sweating profusely, openly shaking as he tried to keep it pointed at the woman. Her counting continued unabated, and by the time he pulled the trigger, she was on six.

In spite of the man's shaky aim, the bullet was on course, and would have hit the woman directly where her right hand was covering her eyes, had she not exercised her power over it. The second the bullet entered her sphere of influence, an area that was about ten feet around her on every side, it immediately stopped in midair. The bullet itself, if one were to look closely enough, would also look _different._ It had taken on a liquid metal state, a gooey sort of blob that looked like a silver metallic raindrop. The thing hovered there for half a second before changing course and shooting out to strike the leg of one of the fleeing men, returning to its solid form just in time hit its new target. The man felt the bullet hit home and screamed, stumbling and tripping up his companion.

"You know," Iron Rain interrupted her counting without moving her hand away from her eyes. "You really should get the sights on that thing looked at. That was a _terrible_ shot. Unless you secretly hate that guy for some reason. In which case, good job!" Then she continued to count. "Seven... eight..."

Eyes widening, the man opened fire once more, joined by the others. All should have known better.

All of their bullets stopped, each taking on that liquid metal form as they hovered in the air. As more bullets were added, the transformed liquids slid together and blended into a single mass. It reshaped itself until, by the time they stopped firing, a long, thin blade hovered there in front of the woman.

Realizing the futility of their efforts too late, the four men panicked. One ran toward the back wall of the alley, hoping that getting over the twelve foot high barrier would be easier than dealing with the former Empire Eighty-Eight member. One tried to scramble to the nearby fire escape, while the third frantically beat against the closed and sealed door into one of the buildings. The last man, who had claimed that having sex with her would improve his reputation, sprinted in a blind panic to pass her.

"Ten," Iron Rain finished. As she spoke the word, the puddle of water directly in front of her feet abruptly took on a silvery sheen, matching its form to the transformed bullets. This was her power, a combined control over any water and metal inside of her ten foot radius in each direction. Exercising that control over either substance combined the properties of each, turning metal into a semi-liquid shape and water into a semi-solid shape, both becoming liquid metal that she could shape as she saw fit. She could also push them to be more solid or more liquid at will.

That control would disappear outside of her ten foot radius, but they would retain the trajectory that she set them on, and their velocity and force would only fade over the natural course of time. The metal and water would remain in the physical state that she left them in.

To that end, the now-metallic puddle that lifted from the concrete formed itself into a buzzsaw shape before it began to spin rapidly while she exercised her will to sharpen and solidify it further. With a gesture of the woman's hand, it flew straight toward the top of the fire escape. With a shriek of protesting metal, the transformed metallic saw cut through the ladder, which fell free of the landing and sent the man that had been frantically scrambling up it plummeting back to the ground.

At the same time, Iron Rain made a down gesture with her opposite hand. The bullets-turned-blade flew straight into the foot of the man who had been running past her, impaling it and pinning him there.

Shrieking out as he was abruptly jerked to a stop by the metal spear pinning his foot to the ground, the man lost his grip on his pistol. As it fell, the woman pivoted and caught the weapon with one hand. Under her grip, all of the metal parts of the gun turned to a semi-liquid shape, while every part that wasn't metal simple fell to the ground. The blob of former-gun floated there in her hand, forming into a baseball shape as she turned back toward the man that was struggling to climb the wall at the back of the alley. He was almost three quarters up the thing, straining to grab the top in order to haul himself over and escape. Before he could, however, she let the orb of liquid metal fly off of her palm. As it moved, the metal elongated into a new spear which went straight through the leg of the climbing man, pinning him to the fence as he let out a scream of surprise. The pain made him lose his grip on the fence, and he fell backwards and down so that he was supported only by his pinned leg. Hanging upside down, his scream turned into a shriek of agony.

The final man, who had not been injured other than being knocked to the ground when his companion fell into him after the transformed bullet struck his leg, was trying to scramble to his feet once more.

Casually, Iron Rain stepped that way, drawing her leg back before kicking him hard enough in the stomach to knock him back to the ground, wheezing for air. Her voice, unlike the viciousness of her attacks, was still light and conversational. "You know," she confided. "I may be biased, but I really don't think you boys are doing that well. After I gave you a ten second head start and everything!"

Crouching, she turned the gasping man over, putting a hand against his chest. "Do you believe that I could kill you if I wanted to?" She asked while digging the fingers of her gloves into his skin painfully.

The man's head bobbed rapidly, his terror readily apparent as he lay pinned beneath her hand.

Smiling behind her helmet, Iron Rain patted the man's chest. "Remember that. Keep it in mind as I tell you this next part. If I ever see you or any of your buddies again, in my territory or anywhere else, you won't survive my disappointment. Get out of town. Go somewhere else with your drug filth. If I see you, or hear that you're still around, I end you, got it?" The man nodded frantically, and she stood. "Good. Call an ambulance for your idiot partners and then all of you get the fuck out of my city."

Turning on her heel, she strode out of the alley, leaving the men to their whimpers and moans.

She was joined shortly by a large, bulky figure who was muscled in an almost comical way. It was clear that _something_ out of the ordinary was at work in order to make him as muscled as he was, be it powers or steroids. In this case, it was the former. He wore a simple black spandex costume with a diamond pattern, and his face was covered by a full mask that had a crystal attached to the forehead.

"You didn't kill them," the boy who called himself Browbeat began after a few silent seconds. His gaze was turned sideways, paying more attention to the woman than where they were going.

"I didn't?" Iron Rain adopted a surprised tone, snapping her fingers. "Damn, knew I forgot something."

"Would you have killed them if I wasn't watching?" The boy's always overly serious, over analytical voice questioned. He sounded almost detached from the whole situation, as if he wasn't entirely sure how he'd feel about the answer either way save for the knowledge that it was supposed to upset him.

"Not sure," she answered the boy honestly. "Not all of them, at least. Massacring entire groups at once, even loser drug dealers, tends to get attention. I'd rather give people a chance to do what I want before getting the wrong kind of people looking too closely at me."

"You're a villain though," he pointed out. "A Nazi. Don't you want to, I dunno, take over the world?"

She laughed, head shaking. "Take over the world? Fuck no. Too much work. My brother... maybe he does, I'm not sure. Who knows what the hell goes on in Kaiser's head." She shrugged then. "And it's not like I chose the Nazi thing either. I was born into it, same as Kaiser. He either bought into it or he's using the people who did for his own ends. Even I don't know which. But I'd rather make my own decisions. Niggers, kikes, whatever, I'll fucking hate your guts because of the shit you do, not how you're born. And trust me, there's plenty of reasons to hate someone that have nothing to do with some genetic lottery. And Aryan supremacy is bullshit anyway. I've seen just as many white people that are worthless sacks of shit as I've seen any other race. I don't care about that garbage."

"Is that why you left?" Browbeat asked curiously. "Because you didn't believe in the Nazi stuff?"

She shrugged, pausing. "Maybe. I didn't feel like being told who I was allowed to hate and who I'm supposed to like. Way too god damn controlling. I've gotta be free to loathe and love any way I want."

The boy was quiet for a moment before asking, "Your group, why do you call it the Faithful?"

Iron Rain, or rather, Gabriele Anders outside of her costume, chuckled at that. "It's a joke. Kaiser and his group call us traitors. So we chose that name specifically to fuck with them. You know, Faithful when all we're really loyal to is ourselves."

"And Purity's in charge?" He prompted. "But you're like, the Empire princess. Allfather was your, uhh, father."

Iron Rain shrugged once more. The memory of a father she'd prefer to forget came to mind before she mentally shoved it aside. Now wasn't the time to dwell on that. "I'm not a leader. Never wanted the job. She's better at it than I am, and it leaves me free to do whatever I want instead of trying to wrangle Night and Fog and keep them focused on whatever they're supposed to be doing."

"But I saw Krieg, the way he looked, the things he said." Browbeat hesitated then before continuing. "He's only there for you. He listens to Purity, but only because you do."

She nodded once again. "Yeah, he's... pretty focused on some promise he made to my father to always look after me or something. He'd rather be with the Empire, but he's too fucking stubborn. I'm pretty sure I could voluntarily join the Protectorate and he'd be right there beside me. Bitching and complaining about it, but he'd be there. He promised Allfather that he'd protect me, and I can't fucking shake him off. I thought betraying the Empire and cutting ties from the Geselleschaft would make him leave me alone, but he's still here."

The boy fell silent then, as they walked together. He only spoke once they reached a van that was parked in an otherwise empty lot. "So if you don't want to take over the world, and you hate people equally, what _**do**_ you want?" He tugged on the door of the passenger side of the van and stepped in.

"Freedom," Gabriele answered while climbing into the driver's seat. She pulled the helmet off of her head, revealing a woman in her late twenties who would seem to fit the Nazi ideal. Tall and blonde with fair skin and high cheekbones and pale blue eyes, she looked regally beautiful. "Freedom to live in a city that isn't a total heap of shit. Freedom to fucking let my little niece grow up without worrying about some lowlife bastard getting her hooked on crack when she's in elementary school."

When the boy just continued to watch her expectantly, she continued while putting the key in the ignition to start the van. "I don't care about any of that race stuff, like I said. But that doesn't mean I wanna let all these people run around my city making it worse. Purity has this idea about cleansing the city of all the filth, getting the place cleaned up. We want the gangs gone, especially the fucking drugs. Merchants, Empire, fucking ABB, whoever's peddling, whoever's making the city worse, they either get out of our city or they die."

"Sounds more like you're heroes than villains," Browbeat observed.

Her head shook. "No. See, heroes play by rules. They arrest, they take it through the system, whatever. Fuck that shit. We do what we want. We'll kill the fuckers, beat the shit out of them, put them down where they stand if they don't leave the city. The Protectorate, the Brigade, all those heroes, they think they can just ask people to behave and they will. We know better. We know that sometimes you have to fucking _**make**_ people behave, and sometimes you have to yank a few weeds so the garden will flourish."

She looked sidelong at him as the van pulled to a stop at a red light. "Don't get the wrong idea, kid. We aren't good people. Most of us are broken inside, in one way or another. We're violent and we don't really have much in the way of remorse. Our way of cleaning up this city isn't going to be pretty and it isn't going to be fair. I let those guys go tonight because I want them to convince as many of their friends as possible to get the fuck out of Brockton Bay. But I meant what I said, if I see them again, they're dead."

Again, the boy fell silent. It was almost a full minute before he spoke again. "A couple days ago, when you saved me from Hookwolf, I said I owed you, that I'd hear what you had to say about what you're doing and why. That I'd give it a chance."

Gabriele gave another nod at that. "That's why I let you come out with me tonight. Purity wants me to tell you to join us so that we can clean up the streets together. But I don't want you to get the wrong idea and think that it's all nice and shiny. We're doing some bad things. Our goals are to make the city better and to get the god damn drugs out of here so that her kid and everyone else can have a nice place to live, but we're not heroes. We're not good guys. We did bad shit to get to this point and we'll do even more bad shit to get what we want."

He watched her for a brief second before nodding. "Then I'll join you. For now. I'll give it a chance. I mean, I don't want to kill anyone, but I'll help you clean the place up. I'll uhh... try anyway. No promises on how long I'll stick around, Iron Rain."

"I wouldn't accept any promises," she informed him. "My name isn't Iron Rain though. It's Gabriele."

"Oh, uhh, right." Head bobbing, the boy reached up to tug his mask off, revealing his face. "I'm Nicholas. Nicholas Kinder."

"Good to officially meet you, Nicholas Kinder." Glancing that way, Gabriele offered him a faint smile and saw the boy blush. He was clearly attracted to her, and had been even before she let him see her face. He had become smitten after she rescued him from Brad. "Are you hungry?"

"I... could eat." He admitted.

"Great," Gabriele turned her attention back to the road. "Then we'll pick up something on the way back. Purity's going to want to know about your decision."

While she drove, the woman's mind was elsewhere. Browbeat was a good recruitment, but they needed more. They were going to have to become much stronger than they were if they were ever going to take down their former team. And the Empire had to fall if the city was ever going to be completely free of all the drugs and crime that plagued had plagued it for so long. Getting rid of the Merchants might help, but they were small time compared to the product that Kaiser's people distributed.

It would mean facing her brother. But she was okay with that. Ever since she had learned about the plot between him and Brad that had resulted in the death of her father, Gabriele had known that she would one day have to deal with them both.

The idea of killing their own brother might have saddened most people. But Gabriele Anders wasn't most people. Her hand reached out to flip on the radio, and as the song filled the van, she hummed along with it.

Let Max have his plots for now. The time would come when they would be face to face once more. And this time, only one of them would walk away from it.


	4. Arc 4: Lies, Spies, and Mesmerize

**4-01 – Madison**

"So you kinda got thrown into the deep end last night, huh?"

Only a few minutes had passed since I had accepted the invitation to join the Brockton Bay Brigade, during which most of my thoughts had been a wild free-for-all that reminded me of those massive group wrestling matches my brother liked to watch, where they had like ten of those overly-muscled guys in the ring at the same time. At the moment, 'OHMYGODIT'SREALSUPERHEROES' was putting 'DIDIJUSTAGREETOJOINTHEBRIGADE' into a headlock while 'IREALLYLIKETHEWAYCRYSTAL'SHAIRSMELLS' readied itself to pile drive both of them.

Yeah... the inside of my brain is really weird sometimes.

Beyond my warped mind's weird way of coping with overwhelming things, all that had really happened in those few minutes was that Mrs. Pelham asked if I wanted to come to their house and meet the rest of the Brigade. When I agreed, she had Shielder and Seraph fly home since they were in costume (though in Seraph's case, that was easy) while the rest of us took the SUV to get there.

I was sandwiched in the backseat between Laserdream and Panacea—err, Crystal and Amy. Yeah, that was going to take a lot of getting used to. For god's sake, I had both of their trading cards at home! I had a Lady Photon nightlight. _**A Lady Photon nightlight!**_

Realizing belatedly that I should probably answer Crystal's question, I shrugged hesitantly. "Umm, I'm not sure what you mean. I guess I didn't really get thrown in so much as step off the diving board."

She laughed, showing me those perfect teeth that made me briefly forget to listen to what she was actually saying. "My point is, it's not always like that. Most nights are pretty boring, actually. You just happened to jump in right when everything went completely nuts. I mean, the Empire and the ABB having a brawl at the same time that the Protectorate's fighting Lung by a hospital? And then Faultline's group gets involved for some reason? How does that even happen?"

"Don't forget about the kidnapping," Panacea—Amy put in from the other side of me, pulling my attention that way. The healer was paying more attention to her phone than she was to me, a smile playing at her freckled face as her thumbs rapidly tapped out a text.

From the front seat, Lady Pho—Mrs. Pelham nodded. I could see her eyes watching me in the rear view mirror. "Yes, the mayor's niece no less. Carol was meeting with the director to find out what they're planning to do about that. She should be home by the time we get there."

I opened my mouth to ask who Carol was, but Amy spoke before I could, still not looking up from her phone. "Brandish. She's Vicky's mom and Flashbang's wife. She and mom are sisters."

"Vicky?" I asked before realizing. "Oh, you mean Seraph."

"Don't worry," Crystal assured me. "It's a lot to get used to." A frown creased her nose. "Or, I assume it would be. We sort of all grew up knowing about it."

"Kind of hard not to," Amy pointed out, finally looking up from her phone. "After all, my dad _**was**_ one of Brockton Bay's premier super villains." While I choked, she smiled and pointed at me. "There it is. I always wondered what someone who wasn't in the know already would do if I told them that."

"He—what—what?" I managed after coughing a few more times. "Your father was, umm..."

"Villain, yeah." She nodded absently as the phone buzzed in her hand. Glancing at it, she started to type out another response while continuing. "I don't suppose you remember a guy called Marquis?"

"Him?" I blurted in spite of myself, staring at the other girl. "You mean he's your—your dad? You're not just messing with me or something? You—he-umm..." I trailed off and looked to the front. "Oh."

"Oh for Scion's sake," Crystal was clearly trying to contain most of her snickers. "Tell her the rest of it, Fuzzball, before she starts inventing some tragic romance between hero and villain in her head.

"Yes," Mrs. Pelham agreed from the front. "I'd prefer if our new member didn't start to think that I had an affair with the notorious super villain that we were later responsible for sending to the Birdcage."

"Spoilsports," Amy's eyes rolled good-naturedly. To me, she clarified, "I'm adopted. I was six when they arrested my dad. The Pelhams took me in. It was scary for awhile, but I got over it." She glanced to the front seat, and I saw a flash of genuine gratitude and love. "Thanks to them. They umm-" She coughed then, as if trying to clear something out of her throat. "They never made me feel like I didn't belong here, and they always answered my questions about my dad. My old dad, not my new dad."

"You were six," Mrs. Pelham reached back with one hand while keeping the other on the wheel to take hold of Amy's briefly. "Too old to forget everything you knew. Lying to you or hiding it from you would have made things worse. You deserved to know the truth about what happened."

Briefly squeezing her adopted mother's hand before letting go so that the woman could drive, Amy looked to me seriously. "Anyway, take it from me, you can trust these guys to take care of you and everything. They're cool, mostly. I mean, Aunt Carol can be a little bit of a pill sometimes, but-"

"Amy." Mrs. Pelham spoke warningly, lifting a finger from the wheel.

Raising her hands in surrender, Amy shook her head. "I just said _sometimes_. And I'll stop calling her a pill when she stops calling me 'his daughter' behind my back."

A gentle poke in the side drew my attention back to Laserdream, and I shifted around to see her wink at me. "Don't worry, it's not you." She confided in a deliberate stage-whisper. "They have this conversation about once a week. Usually right after game night."

Amy had returned her attention to her phone by that point. "It's not my fault that Aunt Carol has to act like I'm going to eat her hand every time we're on the same Pictionary team."

"That's enough, Amy." Mrs. Pelham's voice was a little more firm this time. "I'll talk to Carol, I promise. But I also don't want to hear you talking about her behind **her** back either. Understand?"

After biting her lip for a second, Amy bowed her head in a slight nod, her voice contrite. "Yes, Mom."

"While your dreams of how perfect our team is are being crushed by reality," Crystal drew my attention back to her easily. "I might as well let you know that if you're one of those people that thinks our secret base is an underground palace made out of crystals and lasers, you're about to be disappointed."

From the other side of me, Amy put in absently, "I don't think anyone in the world could possibly be more disappointed than Vicky that we don't have that."

I shrugged both shoulders then. "Hey, my 'base' is my bedroom. Actually, it's more my closet, because my mom and dad go in my room all the time so I can't really... yeah."

Pulling the SUV into the driveway of a fairly nice, though normal-looking house, Mrs. Pelham glanced over her shoulder at me. "I take it that means your parents don't know about your powers or what you're doing?" When I shook my head, she paused. "Okay, we'll have to talk about that when we're all together. Right now, let's go inside and meet the others."

Even as she finished talking, Crystal's door was being opened by Victoria. The other girl was back in her civilian clothes, practically bouncing up and down. "Would you guys hurry up already? God, cars are so sloooow. It'd be so much faster if everyone could fly." As soon as she said it, the girl was shaking her head. "Wait, no it wouldn't. If everyone was flying it'd be crowded up there. Stay the hell out of my airspace." Laughing out loud in that inviting way that made me feel funny, she beckoned. "Come on, Eric's getting changed but everyone else is in the basement."

Realizing that I was staring, I shook myself and moved my eyes away from Seraph—err, Vicky. Unfortunately, the spot my gaze happened to refocus on happened to be Crystal as the other girl climbed out of the vehicle. That funny almost-nervous-but-not-really feeling jumped back until I physically turned myself away. God, why was I blushing? Was this all about meeting famous capes? Was I going to have this kind of reaction if I ever saw Armsmaster or Assault?

As I turned to find absolutely anything else to look at, I found Amy watching me with a curious gaze. "You ahh, you all right?" She asked, eyes flicking up toward Vicky and Crystal before returning to me.

"Fine," my voice squeaked out before I coughed. "I'm fine. I just... it's a lot to take in. I'm still processing." At least I hoped that's what it was. It would be really stupid if I kept getting tongue tied every time I ran into another cape, especially if it happened in the middle of a fight or something.

Something like a realization crossed the other girl's face then, and she gave me a reassuring smile. "Oh, sure. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of ahh, everything soon enough. And, you know, there's always people you can talk to if the new... experiences get to be too weird or different for you."

Popping her door open then, Amy stepped down and gestured. "Come on, Vicky's probably gonna spontaneously combust or something if we don't hurry up."

I followed her out and joined the others before Mrs. Pelham led the way into the house. On the way, Vicky pointed to the place next door, letting me know that was where she lived with her parents.

The inside of the house looked just as ordinary as the outside, at least on the first floor. I could see through a doorway into the kitchen where dishes were in the sink waiting to be done, a blanket and pillow on the nearby couch where someone had been taking a nap, and the television was tuned to some baseball game with the sound off.

A man, who had to be the single largest human being I had ever seen in person in my life, stood there with the remote in one hand. He glanced toward the door as we all came in, and then used the remote to turn off the television. "Well hey, there." His voice was a deep, powerful rumble.

I had to crane my neck back and back in order to look all the way up at the giant. "Lemme guess," I said without thinking about what I was doing. "You're probably Lightstar."

The big man laughed, a loud sound that almost deafened me. "Oh, I like this one," he declared with an easy, wide grin down at me before extending a hand. "Neil Pelham. I take it you're Archive."

My own hand disappeared into his massive grip. "Yes, sir," I answered quickly. "But, umm, you can call me Madison. Err, when we're not dressed up I mean."

"Will do, Madison. And don't worry, I hardly ever make that kind of mistake." He grinned at me again before looked to his wife. "The others are downstairs. Everyone wants to meet the new girl."

"Yeah!" A hand caught mine abruptly, and then Vicky was dragging me toward an open door where I could see stairs leading down. In mid-drag, she stopped suddenly and turned. "Oh, I remembered on the flight over here that I never really introduced myself. So hi." Lifting the hand that wasn't currently holding mine, she offered it to me with a beautiful smile. "Victoria, but you can call me Vicky."

Shifting around to accept her hand with my free one, I nodded. "I heard."

Scowling briefly toward her cousins, Vicky made a face. "I bet you did. Whatever they said, it's a total lie. Unless it's a good thing. In which case... they clearly downplayed it." Laughing easily, she proceeded to continue dragging me toward the stairs, moving backwards.

Crystal interceded before we got too far, extricating me from Vicky's grip. Then we all went down the stairs together, into a place that was about as far from the normal, average upstairs as possible.

The basement was wide open, taking up the entire size of the house. It was split roughly in two. The part nearest the stairs was taken up by some kind of exercise area and workout mat, while the other half, on the far side of the basement, was clearly a briefing area. I could see a floor to ceiling television screen mounted to the wall, with a long table set in the middle of that area that had some kind of neat miniature recreation of Brockton Bay set out on it. There were large silver tool cabinets set against another wall, one of which was open so I could see Shielder's costume hanging up.

The boy himself was standing next to a couple other people, including a raven-haired woman who looked to be several years older than Laserdream or Victoria, but also several years younger than Mrs. Pelham. That was probably Fleur, the one I'd met the night before with Shielder. Outside of her mask, she was pretty too. Not quite as dumb-inducingly attractive as Crystal or Vicky, or even Mrs. Pelham, but still nice enough that even I noticed. Her voice as she looked toward me confirmed my suspicions. "Nice to see you again, Archive."

"It's Madison, apparently." Mr. Pelham informed her with his deep, booming voice that made me jump.

"Then it's nice to meet you, Madison." Fleur came over to shake my hand. "And you can call me Rebecca. Or Becca, whichever you prefer."

Crystal stepped over to join her brother and the remaining three. "And this is Aunt Carol, Uncle Mark, and Uncle Donny. Brandish, Flashbang, and Lightstar. Guys, this is Madison. Archive."

The introductions were passed back and forth, and I found myself putting actual faces to the heroes that I'd known about pretty much through my whole life. The Brigade had been active for as long as I could remember. These had been the heroes I grew up with, even more than the Protectorate. And now they wanted me to be a part of their team. It was unreal.

"Okay, now that everyone has said everyone else's name at least twice," Mrs. Pelham announced. "We should go over a few things."

"Yes," Mrs. Dallon replied. "Most of us have jobs to get back to." She looked to me then. "Actually, Madison, how old are you? Do your parents know about your... activities?"

"She said they don't." Mrs. Pelham joined her sister, the two of them considering me more like mothers than super heroes. "I'm guessing fourteen?"

I flushed deeply, head shaking. "I'm fifteen, ma'am. Almost sixteen. I'm just... small for my age." And, to be fair, the panda made of hot pink glitter on my shirt that had been revealed when I unzipped my jacket during the ride over probably wasn't helping me look super-mature.

Mrs. Dallon nodded. "Almost sixteen. I'm guessing you don't go to Arcadia, so you probably don't have the afternoon off like these four." She indicated Crystal, Victoria, Amy, and Eric.

When I shook my head, Donny called out. "Kid deserves an afternoon off if she's gonna have to start putting up with this crew." He ducked away from the kick that Victoria aimed at him, but ended up right in Manpower's headlock, squawking in surprise.

"We'll get you back to school as soon as possible," Mrs. Pelham assured me. "Which brings me to my next point. I assume you don't want to tell your parents about what you're doing?" When I shook my head, she hesitated and glanced to the others before nodding to me. "All right, we won't make you. Not _yet_ anyway. You really should think about it so that we can all be on the same page, but we won't force you unless it becomes necessary." She held up a hand then. "But, we also aren't going to contribute to you missing out on your education or getting yourself into too much trouble."

Vicky piped up then. "Oh please, she can absorb her text books and ace every test ever just by thinking about the contents of the book. Her powers are perfect for kicking ass all night and breezing past a test the next day."

"Just make sure you really learn the subject." Mrs. Dallon's voice was firm as she looked from her daughter to me. "And do the homework."

"Right," Mrs. Pelham agreed. "Listen, Madison, if we're taking you on... we've never done this with someone who wasn't part of the family, but if we're doing it now we're going to hold you to the same standards we hold the rest of the kids to. That means you keep your grades up. I'm not your mom or dad, but I am the leader of this team. I want to see your report cards. If you start doing too badly, you won't be coming out with us until you get them up again. Do you understand?"

My head bobbed quickly. "Yes, Ma'am. I'll be okay." I shrugged, unable to keep all the annoyance out of my voice. "It's not like Winslow's standards are super high to begin with."

"Hey," Mrs. Pelham touched the side of my face, and I looked up at her. "Ours are. If you're doing this, you maintain those grades. I want to see them. And you do anything you need to at home. That comes first, before any patrolling or missions."

"Yes, ma'am." I agreed with a nod. "I'll keep my grades up, I promise."

"Good." Smiling a little, the woman continued. "That brings me to my next point, which is no solo patrolling. Until you get some training, you stay with at least one of us. It'll probably be one of the kids most of the time, but either way, you don't go out alone anymore. If you're not telling your parents, that means we're responsible for what you're doing. Do you understand me?"

Again, I nodded. "No going out by myself. I won't. I umm, could really use the help anyway."

It was Mr. Dallon's turn to talk. He was standing by his daughter, his hand resting on top of her blonde head. "Think the kid's agreed to enough rules yet, Carol? Or do you want to whip up a contract for her?"

"Mom's a lawyer," Vicky explained, grinning proudly. "The best one in the city."

The only other lawyer I knew was Emma's father, and considering what _**he**_ had done, I wasn't feeling all that charitable toward the occupation. Still, I tried not to let that show. "Cool."

Mrs. Dallon, for her part, rolled her eyes and pointed a finger at me. "Just make sure you do as Sarah said. Follow the rules."

"I think that's enough," Rebecca was chuckling. "You're all going to overwhelm the poor girl." To me, she asked, "Ready to head back to school?"

My head shook. "Not really. This is... uhh, crazy. But I'll go anyway."

Mrs. Pelham smiled. "I suppose going back to ordinary school must seem pretty boring after all this. But that's the life here. You have to play at being normal and do all those normal things before you can do any of... this. That's all important too."

"If it makes you feel any better," Mr. Pelham rumbled in his deep baritone. "You could come over tonight and we can talk about your new costume."

I blinked at that. "New costume?"

"Unless you're very attached to what you have?" Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "You didn't think we'd have you be a part of the Brigade and force you to make do with that little thing, did you?"

"We'll need your sizes and everything else," Mrs. Dallon put in. "But we can go over that tonight. For now, you should probably get back to school."

Crystal raised a hand. "I can fly her. Well, not directly to school, of course. But close." Leaning closer to me, she added, "See that look on Vicky's face? She's annoyed that I asked first."

"Nah," Victoria's head shook. "I've got a date with Dean to get ready for." Looking toward me, she added, "Besides, I may be great, but even I'm not as good of a flyer as Laserdream.

"Fl-fly?" I swallowed, the thought of Crystal carrying me into the air making my heart suddenly start beating very fast. Which was weird, because I'd never had a problem with heights before.

"Sure, if you want to?" She added the last with a curious look. ""If not, I could also give you a ride-"

"Flying's fine." I squeaked out quickly, feeling myself blush even more. "And umm, yeah, I'd like to come back tonight."

"Then we'll see you around... seven?" Mrs. Pelham decided. "Does that give you time to do your homework and have dinner with your family?" I nodded, and she gave me an easy smile. "Good. Sorry our visit here was so rushed, but we should have time to actually go over some more specifics tonight. And we'll see what kind of costume you'd like to go with our general theme. All those sorts of details."

To Crystal, she asked, "Are you sure you can get her all the way over to Winslow? It's further away than Arcadia."

The blonde girl nodded. "Sure, and it'll be faster than going through traffic." To me, she added, "Ready to go?"

My head bobbed slowly. "I... I guess so." My skin felt tingly and my heart was doing its flip end over end thing again, but I tried to keep that off my face. Really, I should not be this nervous.

We said our goodbyes for the time being, and then Crystal donned her own costume before heading out into their backyard with me. There was a high security fence surrounding the property, and the house sat on a hill too high for any neighbors to catch a glimpse of what went on back there.

"You should probably put your mask on," Crystal advised. "Just in case someone takes a picture. It's happened before."

"Oh, right." Fumbling a little to get it out, I pulled the mask on and shifted nervously. "Ready, I guess."

Instead of moving right away, Crystal paused and watched me from behind her visor. "Hey, it's nothing to be too nervous about. I'm not gonna drop you or anything, I promise. Are you sure you're okay with this? I really don't mind driving if you prefer that."

I shook my head quickly, embarrassed by my confusing reaction. "No, no. I'm okay. I think it's just a lot to take in."

She chuckled at that. "I guess it would be. Okay, turn away from me." Once I did, she stepped up close and hooked her arms around me. She was pressed close, and it was all I could do not to whimper.

God, what was my problem? I wasn't scared of heights. Was I really that nervous about being carried? I knew Laserdream could carry people. I'd seen her do it. My brain needed to chill the hell out.

We lifted off the ground, and Crystal checked to make sure I was okay. Her voice in my ear made a full shudder run through me before I managed to nod. "I'm g-good."

We were flying. We were actually lifting off and I was in the air. Granted, it was all thanks to Crystal, but I was _**flying.**_ There was no airplane, helicopter, or even hot air balloon involved. It was an amazing feeling, and I couldn't help the gasp of surprised delight that escaped me.

"I won't go too fast." The other girl assured me before rising higher. "Though I'm pretty sure you'd like this to go on for a long time."

"I w-would?" I blurted a little too quickly.

"Sure," she replied. "I know if I went to Winslow, I wouldn't be in any rush to go back." Her arms squeezed a little tighter then as I felt her flinch. "Errr, crap, that was a pretty Victoria thing to say. Sorry. I just meant..."

"I get it," I shook my head. "Trust me, I'm not offended. I'd rather ignore that stupid school as much as possible."

"Anything you want to talk about?"

For a moment, I almost blurted all of it out. My mouth opened and then shut. Then I shuddered heavily.

"Hey, hey, are you okay?" Poor Crystal sounded completely confused by that point.

"I'm fine," I lied. "I just... there's... stuff I should talk about with someone, but I can't really. And now's probably not a good time. School and all that."

Laserdream was quiet for a moment. By that time, we were pretty high in the sky. She started to fly away from their neighborhood before speaking again. "You like Chinese?"

"Uhh, yeah?" I blinked. "But why?"

"And whatever keeps making you shudder whenever someone mentions your school, you obviously need to talk about it." She answered quietly. "So meet me tonight and we'll talk about it. So we'll get some Chinese, head to a quiet spot I know, and then you can unload. Say anything you need to say. Get it off your chest. Unless you really don't want to. In which case, I won't bother you about it again. Your choice. What do you say, Chinese for dinner?"

I hesitated, biting my lip while I thought about everything that had been boiling up inside me for the past few months. Finally, I gave a little nod. "Chinese for dinner... sounds good."

I just hoped that, once I told the other girl what was bothering me about Winslow and everything that had led up to all of it, she didn't fly away screaming about what a monster I was and tell her family they shouldn't have anything to do with me.

But if she did, I'd deserve it. And as important as this was, I really didn't want it to come out later at some completely inopportune time. I needed to be up front with my issues to at least one of them. She could help me figure out what I should tell her mother about it.

And if it ended with me being on my own again, oh well. It would suck, but I'd rather be honest about my mistakes and be by myself than hide them and let those secrets fester.

Unfortunately, in the crowded wrestling ring that was today's jumbled thought process, 'IREALLYLIKETHEWAYCRYSTAL'SHAIRSMELLS' had already defeated every other challenger and was just sort of parading itself through my brain, waving its sign wildly. It made thinking about what I was going to say to her very difficult.

The truth here was obvious. The issue was laid out before me, and I recognized what it meant immediately. I couldn't stop smelling not just Crystal, but Victoria too. As much as I tried, the thought of how pretty their hair was just wouldn't get out of my head. All of which meant one clear and definitive thing.

I really, really needed better shampoo.

 **4-02 – Taylor**

Through my shock about Elle actually hearing my thoughts, I barely heard what the others were saying. She heard me. She _ **heard**_ me, didn't she? This wasn't a fluke or something random that she had just happened to respond to, she had actually heard what I thought and responded to it, in real time. I... I had to get back there. I had to get myself back into her head. I had to explain.

Unfortunately, I still didn't have the kind of control that would have allowed me to jump from mind to mind at will. I could sort of _feel_ what I was supposed to do, but it was awkward and kept slipping away from me. The more frantically I tried to leap my attention toward the girl, the more I lost the grip. It was like trying to grab wet soap with equally wet hands. I needed to be gentle and careful, but it was hard to tone down my excitement. For a couple minutes, I all-but frantically tried to throw myself back into Elle's mind, only to wind up dizzy and a bit frustrated as every attempt just spun my view back into the all-encompassing view that didn't do me any good right now.

In that time, Gregor had wheeled me alongside the others down to what was apparently the briefing room. The place looked like it had been a storage room at one point, though the only thing in it now was a long wooden table, some chairs, and a few boxes in the corner. On one of the walls was a white board with dry erase markers, and along the other walls were various newspaper clippings, reports that were obviously stolen from police or PRT sources, and even photocopied journal entries. It... sort of looked like the inside of a serial killer's obsession room. All of it, I noticed, talked about parahumans who had three things in common: monstrous features similar to Gregor or Newter, amnesia, and some kind of weird symbol on their body that looked like a stylized U.

Thanks to my wrap-around vision, seeing and processing all of this happened within a few moments of being wheeled inside the room. I still had no idea what any of it actually meant, but I knew it was there.

Newter was already there, lounging back in one of the chairs with his feet up on the table. He waved a hand as we entered, eyes on Faultline. "Yo, boss. What's the rush to get here? I thought we were on vacation until you had time to train the new girl up a bit and help that whole communication problem."

"Feet down while we're on official business, Newter," Faultline instructed. "You know the rules." Once he had complied, she added, "I'll explain what's going on as soon as Emily and Olivia get here."

"I told you," an annoyed voice spoke from the doorway as the aforementioned girls came in. "Call me Mockshow." Casting a glance toward the spot where my body sat in its wheelchair, she moved around it to drag out one of the nearby chairs. Turning it around, she sat down in the chair the wrong way.

Emily, meanwhile, sat on the right side of my chair and laid her hand over mine. I could vaguely feel it when she squeezed, in spite of the distraction of my vision. When she spoke, it was a whisper. "I called Teddy and let him know you were okay. He said to tell you he's fine, and to say thanks for what you did last night. Lots of people are safe because of you."

No. I hadn't done a lot. My traitorous body wouldn't let me. All I had done was point Faultline in the right direction and ask her to help. At most I had _somehow_ beaten up a few of the gang members that had tried to hurt Teddy himself, and I still wasn't sure exactly how I had even done that much.

Faultline began to speak then, distracting me. "Okay, here's our job. Remember the rules, no interrupting until I'm done explaining, but after that, everyone gets a chance for input. Just raise your hand first so we're not talking over each other. One at a time."

My vision jumped then, so I was at the end of the table. I could see Newter's orange hand raised in a thumbs up gesture as my focus settled into him. I felt... at ease. There was an underlying, deeply buried fear about something that had been lost, but I wasn't even sure he consciously realized the feeling was there. Most of the emotions that I could sense were playfulness and a bit of immaturity that lingered just under an enormous sense of trust and faith in the woman at the front of the room. When Newter looked at Faultline, he flat-out trusted her. It was the sort of faith that most people had in the idea that the Earth would continue to revolve around the Sun. Though he acted a bit immature at times, the boy trusted Faultline in a way that was almost staggering in its completeness.

Faultline began to speak then. "This job should be a simple one. The CEO of Medhall, Max Anders, has hired us to escort one of his armored cars from the city limits as soon as it enters, all the way to their company headquarters. He has information indicating that the car will be attacked by one of the local gangs." She paused slightly before continuing. "Specifically, the Undersiders."

"Ah," A sense of realization had come over Newter after the name was mentioned. "Right, the Undersiders. That explains why you accepted the job." Faultline's eyes were on him, and he held up both hands in surrender. "Sorry, sorry, interrupting, running laps after the briefing, I got it."

Undersiders? I felt like the name was familiar, but I had no real idea of who they were. One of the criminal gangs in the city? Why would Faultline be more willing to accept a job that put them into conflict with the Undersiders in particular more than other groups? Some kind of rivalry?

"If they do attempt some kind of attack," Faultline continued, "it will be somewhere within the city limits, though Anders wasn't able to narrow it down further than that. We'll have to have some of us ride along with the car, while others pace it in other vehicles. We'll get into specifics in a moment. Right now, let's go over everything we know about the Undersiders. We'll start with the members we know the most about, and then get into the two that they picked up last night."

She went on after that, starting to talk about someone named Grue with a darkness generation power. My focus, however, had shifted back to my all-encompassing vision, and I could see Elle sitting in the corner of the room furthest from the door. She had drawn her legs to her chest and twitched every once in awhile, shivering as if she was cold in spite of the heat within the room. It wasn't obvious, which explained why no one else had noticed, but I could tell that something was wrong.

And it was that concern about what was making her shiver, rather than my earlier desperation to throw myself back into the head of the girl who had heard my voice, that finally drove my focus back into her.

Abruptly, I was sitting on a chunk of ice that was floating through frigid waters. In the far distance, a towering black spire could be seen, surrounded by jagged ice cliffs. The wind was harsh and freezing, while the waves lapped water onto my precarious perch that made it all that much worse.

"Gone... all gone." A miserably sad voice mumbled, only the sight of cold breath in front of me indicating that it came from the person whose view I was seeing. "Was here but now all gone. Lost."

Lost? Who was lost? Was she lost?

"Here?" The girl spoke aloud, some mixture of hopefulness and doubt entering her voice. She repeated the same thing she had asked the first time I had jumped into her head. "Are you here with me?"

 _I am,_ I thought. _Can you hear me? Can you actually hear what I'm thinking?_

"I hear," Elle confirmed, her voice taking on an almost reproachful tone. "But you were gone. I heard you before, and then you weren't here anymore. I tried to look for you, but..." A feeling of fear and helplessness came over the girl then as she slowly looked around, taking in her current circumstances as she sat on that single floating bit of ice, drifting through the freezing waters. "I got lost."

Oh. I'd left her, even accidentally, and Elle had been as frantic to find me as I had been to get back to her. Only she had done so inside her own mind or... or wherever this was, this weird connection she had between the real world and this other-place, which had ended up with her sitting here, alone and cold.

 _I'm sorry,_ I thought to her. _I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to leave you alone. I don't really have a lot of control over this. I'm still really new, I don't even know how I'm in your head right now._

"It's all right," the girl's voice was soft. "I've never had anyone in here with me before. I wanted to find you. I didn't know if you were real or just make-believe. But your voice is very soft. It's hard to hear you properly over the wind. You should talk louder."

"I'm not really sure I know how to- wait." Belatedly, I realized two things. First, I was talking out loud rather than thinking the words. Second, I was staring at the pale girl with the light blonde hair from the other side of the ice flow. I felt the cold wetness under me, felt the harsh wind on my skin, and I could even taste the frigid air when my mouth fell open in shock. "What... what did..."

My head turned to look down at my hands, which raised up in front of me. My hands. _**Mine.**_ I recognized them immediately. I could feel my long, curly hair blowing in the wind, and when I raised my hands to my face, I felt it under my own fingers. I felt my nose, my lips, my cheeks. I felt me. _**I felt me!**_ My breath, my hands, my voice. My **voice.** "Me, mine, my, Taylor. Taylor, Taylor, Taylor!"

"Taylor," Elle echoed my joyful cry from the other side of the ice. "I remember now. You are new. Faultline spoke of you. She said you were coming, and now you're here." A slight curious frown creased her features. "She did not say that you would be able to come in here with me."

"We didn't know. Know. Knuh-oh. Wu-eeeeeee..." I played with the sounds, the simple concept of _speaking out loud_ completely blowing my mind at this point. "Wuh eeeeee... diduh-duh-diiiiduh nuh-ohtuh-tuh-tuh-knuh-oh. Weeeeee didn't know!" Laughing in spite of myself, the joy of hearing my own voice overwhelming all other thoughts and confusion, I sang the words then. "We didn't know!"

Finally focusing across the ice flow at the girl, I blurted, "How? How did you make me—how am I here? How can I talk? How is any of this happening? What am I doing here?!"

Elle's head tilted as she regarded me. "I wanted you to be here," she explained in a light, simple tone. "And then you were there." She pointed to where I was sitting. "Strange, that's never happened before."

"You... you just wanted me to appear right here and then I was?" I thought over the words for about half a second before throwing myself across the ice. Poor Elle barely had time to yelp in surprise before I was hugging her. I couldn't help it. With everything that had happened the last few months, after _**so much time**_ spent unable to even communicate, let alone have this much control over myself, I had to hug the person who had made it possible. Even if it was just here, just with her. I could feel tears of happiness and relief as I clung tightly to the surprised girl. "Thank you," I whispered. "Thank you."

I hadn't been able to hug my father earlier. I had been incapable of doing more than raising a hand to indicate that I would miss him. But now I could hug this girl, and did so as if my life depended on it.

"You are here with me, Taylor," Elle replied simply once more. "But I don't understand how."

"Neither do I," I admitted, finally releasing her. "My power doesn't work like this with other people. Mostly I just see through their eyes and feel what they're feeling. But something about yours, your connection to..." I waved a hand around. "Whatever this is, it makes things different, I guess. You can hear me. How? How can you hear my thoughts? How can you bring me in here? Am I really here? Is my body gone from the room where Faultline and the others are?"

In answer, Elle shifted over to lay on her stomach, pointing into the water. "Look."

I followed her example, laying down on the ice while some part of me noted that it wasn't nearly as freezing as it should have been. Oh, it was definitely noticeably cold, but it was a distant sort of feeling. Given the surroundings, the fact that my tears weren't freezing to my face, and it wasn't painful, was surprising. Maybe Elle's power protected us from the effects of the weather somehow.

Either way, when I laid down on the ice and peered into the water beside the other girl, I could see a strange reflection in the waves. Through the restless water was a view of the inside of the room back at the nightclub. It was distorted and hard to make out, while the waves themselves kept breaking up the view and making it difficult to see, but eventually I was able to make out enough details to confirm that my body was definitely missing. It was gone entirely, the wheelchair sitting there empty.

Faultline and the rest of the team, sans Labyrinth of course, were rushing around, clearly trying to find answers. The woman herself was giving orders to search the club, to check the chair for any kind of teleportation trap, and asking if anyone had seen me do anything before I had vanished.

"They are worried about you," Elle observed beside me. "Faultline is a very nice woman. She saved me from the Asylum." Turning her head away from the water, she smiled at me. "And now she saved you."

"You saved me too, Elle." I informed her. "I haven't been able to talk to anyone before now. You... thank you. I need your help to explain things to Faultline and the rest of them, to explain what I can do and what I know. Can you help me with that?" When she nodded, I smiled. It felt good, to smile and really mean it. I wasn't sure how long it had been since I really felt like _smiling_ without reservation.

"Okay," I hesitated. "I think we need to get back there before they get too upset. We should explain what happened. I mean, at least as much of it as we understand."

Elle bit her lip, looking uncertain and frightened. "I'm not sure how to get back. I... get lost a lot. And I have to be alone."

"Hey," I reached out and put a hand over the other girl's, feeling her cold fingers under mine. "You're not alone now, right?" Her head shook, and that little smile came back. "Right. So let's figure this out together." I looked back to the scene through the waves. "Maybe we should just... jump in? I mean, they're right there. I don't know how this works, but we seem to be protected from most of the cold. Maybe it's worth giving it a shot?"

Elle hesitated, looking from me to the water and back again. Finally, she gave a tiny little nod. "If you want to try that." She was literally shaking.

"It's okay to be scared," I promised her. "I'm scared too. But we're doing it together, right?" She nodded once more, less hesitantly this time, and I pushed myself up. I stood. **I stood up.** God, even doing that felt amazing. It was an unbelievable sense of relief, just standing up of my own volition.

Elle stood up beside me, and I took the other girl's hand, squeezing it. "Ready?"

She nodded, but the two of us simply stood there on the edge of the ice flow for a moment, staring down into the distorted reflection of that room through the water. Looking at one another for a few seconds, we both began to count aloud at nearly the same time. "One... two... three."

On that last number, we jumped. I felt water rush up around me, the shock of the cold overwhelming... and then my view was back in the briefing room. I saw my body appear in the wheelchair just as Newter was leaning close in to examine one of the wheels. My sudden appearance made him yelp, throwing himself upwards and back to cling to the far wall.

"Taylor!" Faultline dropped the phone she was talking on and fell to one knee beside me. "Are you all right? What happened? Is this something with your power, or did someone take you?"

"She was with me." Elle spoke aloud. She had risen from her seated position in the corner and smiled while holding her hands up. "We jumped in the water."

"With you..." Faultline looked from Elle to me and then back to the girl again. "Are you all right?" She asked carefully, clearly trying to sort out just how lucid the girl was at the moment. "I thought you were having one of your... bad days."

Elle looked toward me, her little smile growing before she looked back to Faultline and shook her head. "No. Not a bad day. A good day.

"A very good day."

 **4-03 – Sophia**

The sound of a short zap of electricity, followed by a vicious curse that raised even _my_ eyebrows, interrupted what had been a bit of peace and quiet. The curse was followed by a harsh banging noise.

"You know," I spoke while straightening a little in the chair that I had been lounging in for the past hour. "I hear that tinker stuff works better if you don't slam it against the wall."

Across the dingy little garage that apparently belonged to Bryce's parents, the boy sat hunched over a workbench. He spared a scowl for me before giving the wrench he was working with another smack against the wall, pointedly staring as if daring me to say anything else about it.

He was challenging me. Fuck, this kid was a stupid shit. Even disregarding the fact that he didn't know anything about who I really was, he had _**seen**_ me fight those goons. Did he actually believe that I wouldn't call his bluff, or was he just too stupid to actually think through what he was doing?

We stared at each other for a long moment, and a part of me felt like kicking his fucking teeth in. I could feel that rage, that burning _need_ to hurt something, to break it, to take it apart and prove that I was stronger. I'd felt it, in one way or another, since the moment that Steven had taken me off that roof with him. I had to prove that I deserved to live, that I wasn't a coward. How did I do that? By winning. By beating the people who weren't as strong, who didn't deserve to live as much or as well as I did.

Lately, however, that need to win had been accompanied by a different, worse feeling. I couldn't explain it other than as a sort of queasiness deep in my stomach, yet even that wasn't exactly right. It was more than that, and it hit me whenever that urge to beat something came. It was like a need to simultaneously hurl, scream, and explode all at the same time.

Seeing Bryce there, glaring at me with a look that couldn't have been that different from my own, made that feeling twist even more than usual. I pushed myself to my feet, and the scrape of the chair on the cement floor drew the boy's gaze that way for a brief second, breaking our eye contact. I used that, stepping over to where the boy was sitting. "What's wrong with your ahh, thing? I thought you said you could build a, uhh, what did you call it, again?"

The boy squinted at me briefly, then heaved a sigh. "My 'thing' isn't working right. I can see it in my head, but trying to make it with what I have here..." He gave the wrench another hard smack against the counter, angrily standing up. "It's all jumbled now. I need to think. I need better tools. I need-"

"To breathe." I interrupted pointedly. "You're a tinker. Your shit doesn't pop out magically. You need time to build up, get more resources, expand. You can't just throw a few toys together in a garage and then run off to take on every gang in the universe. You've gotta be patient."

Patient? What the fuck was I talking about? Who the hell was I to talk about being patient? Where was this coming from? Christ, I sounded like Triumph or Aegis or something with that shit.

Bryce looked at me just as doubtfully as my inner self was, before rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I'll take a whole lot of tinker advice from some random girl I just met an hour ago. Got any stock tips, babe?"

Seriously, if I didn't strangle this god damn kid, **someone** out there owed me a medal. Gritting my teeth briefly, I counted to ten in my head, then made it another ten just to be safe. "This 'girl you just met an hour ago' is the same person you already asked to be your muscle in this anti-gang quest, you know."

"Yeah, yeah..." Sighing, Bryce slumped back a bit. For a second, he actually looked like the scared little kid in mourning that he was. I felt another of the unfamiliar twists in my stomach at the sight of his eyes dropping as the fight went out of him. "I've got to figure this out though. I swear it works in my head. I just have to figure out what keeps fucking up."

"Like I said, be patient." I made myself say in spite of the part of me that thought I sounded like the world's biggest fucking hypocrite. "Take your time. That's what-"

"Every hour I take is another hour that those _**cocksuckers**_ are out there, laughing about what they did to Sierra!" The boy shouted back at me. This time, he actually threw the wrench across the room. It hit the wall, then fell to the floor with a deafening crash.

My mouth opened to tell the boy that whoever was responsible for his sister's death probably wasn't laughing about it, because they most likely hadn't even noticed what they'd done since it had happened in the middle of a gang war and no one had been specifically aiming for her. But I hesitated. Somehow, telling the boy that his sister had been collateral damage felt... wrong.

Finally, I settled for, "Those gangs have been around for a long time. You know what'll happen if you rush this shit? You'll get killed. You think you're the first person to have a grudge against them? You go running off half-cocked, you'll end up dead and then _nobody_ will give enough of a shit to stop those fuckers. You get that? You die, and you don't get your revenge. Sierra doesn't get her justice."

His eyes glowered at me once more, just for a moment, before he slumped once more, the fight draining out of him again. This kid redefined mood shifts. "I know," he said quietly. "I get it."

He started to say something else, but before he could, the small cell phone clipped onto the strap opposite from the water bottle buzzed with an incoming text. I slipped the phone off and flipped it open to squint at the screen. The message was from my mother, and read, _Tutor coming 30 mins. Where r u?_

"Fuck!" It was my turn to curse, and I did so twice more while closing the phone. "I've gotta go."

"What?" Bryce blinked at that. "Where are you going? I thought you wanted to see what I could do."

Sparing him a brief glance, I bit back my initial retort. "I do," I said with just a little more sharpness than I probably should have. "Just take your time and do it right. I've got shit I've gotta take care of. I just..." Hesitating, I reached out to grab the boy by the face. "Look at me. Right here, Bryce. You look at me and listen. You do **not** go after those fuckers yourself, got it? I don't care how upset you get. You want them to pay for Sierra, then you take the time to _make sure it happens._ You run off just because you're pissed off and the only person that's gonna lose is you. If you go off on your own, you will die. You will die and no one will help Sierra. Do you understand me? If you really, **really** want justice for your sister, if you really want those sons of bitches to pay for what they did, you have to be patient. And you do not, under any god damn circumstances, do anything on that front without me. Got it?"

It took the boy a moment, but he finally gave a short nod. "I get it. No going off on my own."

"Right." I straightened, releasing him. "Now where's the nearest bus station?"

* * *

A tutor. The thought, the suggestion, had made me bristle with barely suppressed rage the moment it had been introduced. My grades had been slipping for the past few months, ever since I was moved to stupid ass Arcadia. The teachers hated me, other students didn't give a shit, and no one was fun to be around. They had their own cliques, their own stupid clubs. I'd had nothing, since I wasn't allowed to join the track team. So what the fuck did I care about that place?

I'd let my schoolwork slip enough that I'd fallen behind. My grades back in Winslow hadn't been academic achievement-worthy, but they'd been decent enough that no one bothered me. Then everything had gone wrong, the world had flipped onto its side and I'd stopped paying attention for awhile because I didn't give a shit. The trouble was, not paying attention for even a little time had left me completely lost on half my subjects. So now, even when I _did_ try to listen, it was all fucking Greek.

The solution that my mother came up with had been a tutor, some other student who could get me caught up on what I hadn't paid attention to. I had refused, but she and Piggyfuck had overruled me. If I didn't get my grades back up within a month, no patrolling until they were. And Scion knew that fat tub of lard was just waiting for any excuse she could get to yank me from the Wards roster.

So I had to put up with a tutor, apparently. This would be my first meeting with whoever they'd roped into the job, and it had been impressed on me repeatedly just how fucked I would be if I blew it off. I had just completely forgotten that it was today of all fucking days.

Basically, if I missed this stupid ass tutoring session, they'd think I had done it on purpose. Then Piggyfuck would yank me off the roster to teach me a lesson. They'd probably look a lot more closely into where I had actually been during that time, and I doubted seeing the GPS locator of my phone standing right in the middle of the ABB factory was going to make me look good in their eyes.

Which meant that I had to make it back home and let that fucking tutor do their stupid job to keep both my mother and Lardass off my case. Because the last thing I wanted right now was for them to pay any more attention to me than they already were. This was going to be hard enough as it was.

Abandoning the bus at the nearest corner that I could convince the driver to stop at, I ran the last two or three blocks, checking the time on my phone on the way. I'd sent my mother a return message on the way saying that I was almost home, and she hadn't responded. That was fairly normal for our relationship though. She said as little to me as was physically possible, even over text.

When I finally reached home, I was just over a minute late. A girl that I didn't recognize was standing on the porch talking to my mother, who had her phone in her hand. Both of them looked at me as I came huffing up, Mom giving me a look that showed just how close she had been to calling Pig-out. Heh, Pig-out. I had to remember that one.

Using her phone to point at me, Mom spoke in that annoyed tone of voice she always had lately. "Where have you been? You know you were supposed to be ready at five, and now you're all sweaty. Do you think Tyler wants to smell your running clothes the whole time she's working with you?"

The girl beside her, some Asian chick who wore baggy jeans and a long sleeved flannel shirt, along with glasses to complete the nerd-look, blushed and shook her head. Her voice was shy and demure. "It's all right, Ms. Hess. I umm, I don't mind... waiting if Sophia would like to clean up first."

"I have to go to work, and Terry promised to take Gemma to McDonalds." Mom pursed her lips before sighing. "Go upstairs and clean up, Sophia. Then you sit down for your study time. I don't want to hear about any problems later, do you understand? This is important."

Restraining the urge to flip her off, I forced myself to give a single sharp nod. "Yes." It was all I could do not to sarcastically salute her. Right now I didn't want to give her any reason to be more annoyed.

Most other times, I would have made a point of taking as long of a shower as I possibly could, stalling and just making it clear how little they could control me. This time, however, I rushed through it. I was cleaned up and in fresh clothes within ten minutes. After running a brush through my hair to straighten it, I went back downstairs to find Terry, my twenty-year old brother, standing there with little four-year old Gemma tugging him toward the stairs, demanding they go see Ronald.

"She's in the kitchen, waiting for you." He told me. Terry didn't know about the Wards, or my powers. He did know I was in trouble, though Mom had kept most of the specifics away from him.

For my part, I just gave him a thumbs up and walked around to the kitchen where the girl was. She had taken a seat at the table and spread several different textbooks around her, along with two spiral notebooks and a handful of sharp pencils. The girl had come prepared, I had to give her that much.

When I entered, she looked over her shoulder before quickly standing up. In her hurry, she nearly knocked over the chair and had to catch it. In doing so, however, her other hand smacked the pencils off the table, sending them flying past me and to the floor. "Oh jeeze!" She blurted out loud. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Uhh, could you ummm, get those, please?"

Rolling my eyes, I turned and leaned down to grab the pencils, turning back to offer them to the girl. It was all I could do not to call her a klutz. I knew Mom would grill her to make sure I hadn't given the poor, innocent little tutor a hard time.

She took the pencils, blushing shyly. "Thanks. And umm, hi. Sorry, I hope you didn't, uhh, rush on my account." Extending a hand toward me while using the other to put the pencils back on the table, she gave a smile that screamed social awkwardness. "Tyler Quinlan."

Eyeing her extended hand, I coughed and stepped around her to fall into one of the other chairs. "Easy there, chick. We're not business colleagues." Waving a hand, I added, "Let's just get this shit over with. What the hell are you supposed to be teaching me, anyway?"

This rankled so much. I didn't **need** a tutor. If I wanted to, if I gave a shit, I could get any grades I wanted. I wasn't a fucking retard. I just didn't care. Why should I? It wasn't like I needed a god damn English degree to be a cape. And this wasn't the kind of job you retired from.

"Oh, uh, right." Somehow blushing even more than she already had, Tyler sat back down. "Okay, so I was thinking that umm, that we could sort of... start with some Trig. You know, if you're up for that."

I stared at her, shaking my head. "You do know that you're the tutor here, right?"

"Sorry, yeah. I'm just uhh, you know, new at this." Tyler straightened and gave me an awkward, shy smile, eyes blinking owlishly from behind her glasses. "I've never really been a tutor before."

Grunting at that, I replied, "I've never had one before. So whatever."

"Well then we're both new at this, I guess." That nerdy smile came back before she coughed and looked away, clearly self-conscious. "Okay, umm, so... math."

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I straightened and grabbed the book that she held out toward me. This was Pig-Out's work, I just knew it. She had chosen some geeky little nerd, hoping that I'd pick on her and give them all the excuse they wanted to bounce me.

Well fuck them. I wasn't rising to their stupid bait. I'd put up with this for as long as I had to.

* * *

For tonight at least, 'as long as I had to' was just over an hour. Tyler kept apologizing for needing to leave before we covered as much material as she had originally planned on. Apparently the girl had some place important to be that wouldn't wait. She was standing up and shoving the books she had brought into an ugly looking green bag when my phone buzzed. I grabbed it and looked at the name. Speaking of the patron saint of lard, the name on the screen was Piggot.

Flipping the phone open, I answered. "Here."

"Hess," The fat fuck spoke sharply. "Are you done with your tutoring session?"

I glanced toward the geeky little Asian chick. "Yeah, just finished up."

"I hope you behaved," Pig-Out replied with an annoyed, harried tone. "We don't have time to deal with any more of your-"

"Did you call for a reason?" I asked pointedly. That would cost me points, interrupting the fat fuck before she could get into another diatribe, but fuck it. I could only manage this diplomatic shit for so long.

I could practically hear the woman on the other end of the phone gritting her teeth. "Get to the Wards HQ. We have reason to believe that the Undersiders are planning something tonight, and it's all hands on deck for your team."

I snorted, walking to the door with my so-called tutor to let her out while answering Piggot. "Fine, I'll be right there. Anything else?"

"No." Her voice was sharp. "Just keep it under control. You fly off the handle going after Grue again, and-"

"I know, benched. I get the concept." I couldn't keep the impatience out of my voice. "I'm on my way."

Clicking the phone off, I put it away and looked over to where Tyler stood with the bag on her shoulder as we reached the front door. She gave me a shy little wave, looking as awkward and uncertain as ever. "So, uhh, I'll see you soon, I guess."

I shrugged. "Sure, soon." Opening the door to let her out, I watched as the girl went jogging down the sidewalk, disappearing into the darkness.

As soon as she was out of sight, I headed upstairs to change into my Shadow Stalker clothes. In spite of myself, I was smiling while taking the stairs two at a time. The night was already looking up.

After all, pounding on the Undersiders sounded like just what the doctor had ordered to cheer me up.

 **4-04 – Emma**

"And then Jake was like, 'uhh, guys, are you sure this is the right house?'" Anne barely finished her sentence before she practically collapsed against her plate of meatloaf and green beans, snickering upon the conclusion of the story that she had been telling for the past several minutes.

The four of us, Dad, Mom, Anne, and me, were having dinner together. Dad had insisted that we eat 'as a family.' My first reaction had been to tell him to buzz off, but Tattletale had convinced me that was a bad idea, considering the sort of thing I was planning to get involved with later that night. I'd finally agreed, even if spending time around my father was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do.

It wasn't just because of what I'd found out earlier, but also a certain paranoid fear. He was my father, **and** a lawyer. I was all-but terrified that he was going to take one look at me and get some kind of sixth sense about all the felonies I was planning on committing in just a few hours.

Honestly, where I _needed_ to be was with the Undersiders, going over exactly what we were doing again. Sure, we'd taken the time to plan it out already, and I knew what my role was going to be. Plus, it wasn't like I was the only one missing. Apparently Nimue had some tutoring job she had to go to. Logically I knew there was nothing else I could contribute until it was time. After all, I wasn't some master criminal. The minute details were up to Grue and Tattletale, mostly, and the idea of me coming up with anything that they didn't already have covered between the two of them was laughable. But that didn't stop me from spending the entire mealtime so far obsessing over what could go wrong.

Honestly, I was scared. A day earlier, I'd set out to be a hero, to make up for the horrible things that I'd done. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, I'd agreed to become a villain, a _real_ villain. Sure, I'd made a point of saying I wouldn't steal from ordinary people, or hurt civilians, or anything. But it was still being a villain. I was still promising to commit crimes that could get me locked up for a long time.

Oh well, it wasn't like I didn't deserve that and so much more.

"You're being quiet, Emma." My father's voice cut into my thoughts. When I looked up from my plate, he was using his fork to point at me. "Anything interesting happen at school today?"

I felt my hand tighten reflexively around my own utensil as my throat went dry. "I-" My throat closed up, and I took a gulp of milk to buy time to collect myself. I'd almost flat out said that I didn't go. Just looking at my dad made me want to spit out the truth to see how he would react.

Instead, while setting the glass down, I looked back at him and ask in a voice that was as flat and emotionless as I could make it, "Did you know that Mr. Hebert lost his house?"

There was a clink as my mother set her spoon down, but my attention was focused solely on my father. I saw the way he flinched just a little before arching both eyebrows inquisitively. "I might have heard something to that effect. How did you find out, exactly?"

I forced a shrug. "I talked to someone from Winslow who said the Heberts don't live there anymore. Why didn't you tell me?" In spite of myself, I couldn't keep the accusing tone out of my voice.

"There's nothing to tell," Dad replied a bit stiffly, stabbing a piece of meatloaf with his fork. "Danny had a bit of a problem paying for Taylor's medical bills, so he moved into a smaller place to keep up."

"How long did you know?" I asked quietly, my eyes staring holes through him.

Sighing at the question, my father used a napkin to wipe a bit of his face carefully before sitting back to regard me with a stare of his own. "How long did I know what, exactly, Emma?"

I carefully set the fork down beside my plate, forcing myself to release it from my white-knuckled grip. My voice was tense. "How long did you know that Taylor's dad was going broke? How long did you know that he had to sell his house to take care of her, that he had to sell their home because of me?"

Mom started to say something about it not being my fault, but Dad held up a hand to stop her without taking his eyes off of me. "I knew about the sale for a few weeks. But that's no reason to-"

"Why didn't you do something?" I blurted loudly, my sudden agitation making me rise to my feet.

"Emma, sweetie, sit down." Mom gestured to the chair and smiled, trying to play peace maker. "We'll just finish our dinner, and then if you want to talk about Taylor and her father, we can-"

"Why," I repeated without listening. My eyes still hadn't left my father. "Didn't you do something?"

"I did." Dad used his fork to point at the chair firmly. "I kept my daughter out of prison, and gave her a chance to keep her life on track. Now sit down and eat. There's nothing else to say about any of this."

"Bullshit!" I spat the word without thinking. Mom's eyes widened, but I pressed on over her objections. I was already in for it, so what did it matter? "You should have helped him. That was Taylor's mom's house too. That was their home. I—how could you let them lose their home and not do _anything_?"

"That is **enough** , Emma." Mom's voice was firm that time. "Sit down and eat. No one thinks that what happened to the Heberts is fair, and we all wish there was something more we could do to help them."

"There is!" I ignored the order to sit down. Instead, I took a step away from the table, clenching my hands. "We've got money. I have a college fund. You should have given him that to help Taylor!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Emma." Dad shook his head stubbornly. "We're not giving up your college fund just because you feel a bit guilty over a stupid little prank that went wrong."

My voice raised to a near shriek. " _ **I almost killed her**_!" Dad had stood up by that point as well, but I pressed on without listening to his attempts to calm me down. "I almost killed her. She almost died because of me, because of **me!** It wasn't a stupid little prank, it was wrong! It was... it was evil! Everything I did to her was evil, and now she doesn't even have her home anymore! That's my fault too. That's my fault, so give her my college fund. Give her everything, I don't care! Just give her something! Give them something! I don't deserve it. I don't deserve **any** of this!" On those last words, my foot lashed out to kick the chair, knocking it forward against the table. The jolt knocked two of the glasses over, spilling milk everywhere with a crash.

Bellowing my name, Dad crossed around the table to stand directly in front of me. He was shaking almost as much as I was as he repeated what Mom had said. "That is enough. You're not helping anything by having a temper tantrum right now. I get it. I get that you feel guilty. But it's over now. It's done with. You have nothing to do with Taylor or her father anymore."

In the background, I could hear Mom telling my sister to leave the room. Anne protested, but finally left after another stern word from our mother. She cast one last look back at me, an unreadable expression on her face before passing through the door.

Dad was still talking. "Their lives are none of our business. We have our own lives to get back to. You have a future ahead of you. College, a career, it's all there still. And you know as well as I do that if we had done anything to admit liability, the PRT would have thrown you under the bus as the instigator in order to spare their precious Ward. You want me to give Danny money? The second I do, he'll hit us in civil court for damages and use that as evidence of guilt. I've seen it a thousand times, Emma. Someone feels guilty about what they did, so they reach out to the victim and the victim uses that to bury them. Because they don't care about how guilty you feel. They want _revenge._ I won't let that happen to you. I won't let anyone, not even you, ruin my daughter's life. You made a series of horrible mistakes, Emma. You did awful things, no one's denying that. But it's time to move on. It's time to get over it. You want to be a better person, start by being better to your family. Start by acting like an adult."

"Get past it?" I echoed in disbelief. "Get past it? What the **hell** do you think turning ourselves in was about?!" My voice rose once again while I stared at my father. "Why do you think we wanted to tell the truth? Why do you think Madison and I wanted to tell them everything we did?"

"And that might have made you feel better in the short term," Dad replied tensely. "But I already told you, it would have ruined your future. It would have taken away every opportunity you've got."

"Taken away every opportunity?" I repeated his words once again before taking in a long breath and letting it out. My voice went quieter as I stared at my father. "I... wanted them to treat me like I deserved to be treated. I betrayed my best friend. I ruined her life. I ruined her. I tortured her. And I wanted—I deserved to pay for what I did. I deserved to be expelled, to go to juvenile detention. I deserved all of that and worse. I **deserved** to lose those opportunities. That's what I deserved. That's what I earned. That's what should have happened. I should have paid for what I did."

There was a dampness in my eyes that I couldn't quite blink away. "And maybe, just maybe, after I was done paying for it, after I went to juvie and everything else that should have happened, _**maybe**_ I could have come to terms with it. Maybe, at that future point, I could have forgiven myself. Maybe, once I actually paid for everything I did wrong, I could give a shit about my life again."

My eyes closed tightly and then opened again. I could barely see through the tears that blinded me. My voice was choked with emotion. "That is the opportunity that I wanted, the opportunity to forgive myself after paying for what I did. But now... now I can't. I can't because the system has already ruled about what I did. That's already over. It's gone, and I am stuck here. I am stuck with this guilt and I will never get to pay for it. I will never get to move on."

Fists clenched at my sides, I stepped away when my father reached out to me, forcing my shaking voice to continue. "I wanted to tell the truth. I wanted to tell them everything and then pay for what I did. It would have sucked for awhile. I probably would have gone to juvie, like I said. And maybe that would stop me from getting into the best university in the world like _you_ wanted. But at least, when it was over and I was finally out, I could stand to look at myself in the mirror. At least then, I could live with myself. You want to talk about losing opportunities? That was the opportunity I wanted, to pay for what I did. That is how I wanted to get over it. That is how I wanted to move on."

Taking in a long, deep breath, I steadied myself just enough to meet my father's stare. My voice was as flat as I could make it. "And you are the one who took _that_ opportunity away from me."

Arms spread wide, I added, "But hey, you saved my college fund, and you spared the family name. So bravo, Dad. Congratulations on an amazing job as a lawyer."

Mom caught my arm while my father stood there in silent shock. There were tears in both of their eyes as well. "Emma, sweetie," she started to say. "Listen, if you feel that bad. There are things that we-"

She was trying to pull me into a hug, but I wrenched my arm free, barely resisting the urge to use my power. "I can't." I threw up both hands and took two steps away to evade her attempt to hold me again. "I can't do this right now. I can't... do any of it. I..." I worked my mouth, staring at my parents.

Then I pivoted on my heel and fled the room before the tears completely blinded me.

* * *

Two hours later, Tattletale nudged me in the side. "You all right?"

The two of us were at the base of a cement pillar that helped hold up the freeway overpass where we had decided to do this job. The armored car from Medhall would pass directly beneath the overpass on its way to their headquarters. When it arrived, Regent, who was perched in a semi-hidden alcove above us with a line of sight along the road, would force the driver to crash. Then Nimue and Grue, who were at the opposite end of the overpass from where Tattletale and I were, would play distraction and cover. Meanwhile, Tattletale and I would get into the armored car itself, with me 'teleporting' inside and opening it for my blonde companion. That way she could look through what was there and make sure we got what the Undersider's mysterious boss actually wanted.

Bitch was just a bit further away, staying out of sight with all three of her giant dogs. As soon as we got underway, she would be ready to play a combination of backup muscle if anything went wrong, and get-away even if it didn't.

I glanced over at Tattletale, seeing her gazing at me curiously from behind that domino mask. I hesitated before shaking my head. "Had a fight with my dad," I told her quietly. "I don't really want to talk about it. But don't worry, I can focus."

The blonde nodded once, but before I could turn my attention back to the road and continue hyping myself up for what we were about to do, she spoke again. "If you decide you do want to talk about it, or just vent... I hear it can help sometimes." There was something in her voice, something that I couldn't really place, but it sounded more... real than she tended to.

Biting my lip, I was torn between responses. Before I could settle on one, the cell phone that the other girl was holding buzzed in her hand. She glanced down at it. "Regent just spotted the car. We've got thirty seconds."

Cracking my neck to the side, I tried to calm my suddenly racing heart. The urge to throw up was almost overwhelming, but I forced it back. "Guess therapy will just have to wait until later, huh?

"Time to be bad guys."

 **4-05 – Sophia**

"Thank you for joining us, Shadow Stalker."

Somehow, Pig-Out managed to make the greeting sound _simultaneously_ genuine and condescending, like it was my fault I was the last one there. She could have given Emma tips on layering several vastly different meanings beneath what she actually said, and that girl had learned from her father the lawyer.

"Yeah, well, I heard there was gonna be a fight. You know I can't resist kicking criminal ass," I replied breezily while crossing from the back entrance of the PRT building to the other side of the corridor, where the rest of the Wards were standing next to the elevator that led down to our little headquarters slash hangout area. Apparently I wasn't gonna have a chance to head down before we left though, considering everyone else was ready to go and Gallant was actually holding my crossbows.

Whatever, I had my costume on already. Wasn't like I needed anything down there. Wasn't like I actually gave a shit that it looked as though they had been about to leave without me, or that half of them looked disappointed when I came through the door. Fuck them.

The wannabe knight in shining armor extended them to me as I approached, and I took the weapons from him, compulsively checking them over to make sure that nothing had been done to them while they were out of my sight. Call me a hypocrite, but, well, I don't fucking trust these people.

Piggy-fuck apparently didn't think my comment was as casual as I'd meant it, because she pointed at me. "Keep that attitude in check, Stalker. You heard what I told you over the phone. If you can't keep yourself under control when you see Grue, you'll spend every on-duty night on monitor duty for the next six months. You won't see another patrol until the summer's over. Don't believe me? Try it."

 _It was a fucking joke!_ I wanted to scream the words back at her, and my fingers tightened over the crossbow as I fought to keep the urge in check. I had to breathe. Breathe. Control it. Fuck it and fuck her. You don't have to rise to that bait. Just leave it alone. Leave it alone. Say nothing, do nothing.

Beside me, Gallant gave a little start, his armored helmet turned toward me briefly before he looked toward the beady-eyed fat woman that was staring at me. "Ah, ma'am, did you say this information came from Faultline? Are we sure it's viable? I mean, her group aren't exactly heroes."

"Faultline doesn't do jobs in this city that might end up getting the local Protectorate annoyed with her team," Pig-Out replied, finally looking away from me and giving me a chance to breathe. "And she _definitely_ knows better than to lead a Ward team into a trap. No, this is legitimate. She wanted us to have advanced warning that her group was going to be operating in the area and why. Since it's the Undersiders, your priority, it was decided that you would assist in this situation to provide a legitimate presence to the proceedings. Capture as many of the Undersiders as you can, as _safely_ as possible."

Chronicler, who stood there in his own costume with the chained book for an emblem, raised his hand before speaking up with his faint Texan accent. "Ah, could I just ask, what's this armored car they're supposed to be hitting? Anything special about it?"

"The car belongs to Medhall, the pharmaceutical company." Pig-Out turned her attention to him. "We believe that the CEO, Max Anders, is the one who hired Faultline's group, though she has been tight-lipped on that point. Regardless, they've clearly left us out of the loop, so we owe thanks to Faultline for bringing us back in. I shouldn't have to tell you how ridiculous it would make us look if we get caught sitting on our hands while some outside group captures the Undersiders."

I was tempted to ask what all this 'we' and 'our' stuff was, and if it meant that she was planning on squeezing her fat ass into a pair of tights to come help, but managed to restrain the urge with some effort. Instead, I focused on securing the crossbows to their places on my belt.

"We don't know exactly where in the city the Undersiders are planning to hit the car," the woman waddled past us, toward the door that would lead to the parking lot. "So you're going to take a van and keep pace with it. Anderson will be your driver."

We trailed after her, to where the nondescript-looking man that she was indicating stood next to an equally unremarkable gray van. Both had that kind of look that made your eyes pass them right over.

"The moment the Undersiders show themselves, you shut them down. No excuses," Pig-Out ordered. "We know what their target is and we're ready for them ahead of time. They poke their heads up, they get cuffed and brought in, quickly and safely." She gave us all, me especially, one last long look before pointing to the van. "Go on, and keep me up to speed on everything that's happening."

"You heard the lady," Aegis strode to the back door of the van and opened it before gesturing. "Let's get out there and show the Undersiders why it's a bad idea to start making a name for themselves."

* * *

"Hey, does that overpass look like an obvious trap to anyone else?" Clockblocker was sitting toward the front of the van, pointing between the seats toward a spot ahead of us. Our ride was three vehicles back from the armored car that the Undersiders were apparently targeting.

Beside him, little Vista nodded. "Sure does. Just like the last three places you pointed out."

"Never hurts to be ready." Gallant, who sat across from me and beside Aegis, nudged me with his foot after speaking. "Right, Stalker? You're all about being prepared, aren't you?"

I knew what he was doing. For the past thirty minutes of our trip, I hadn't said a word. He was trying to drag me into the conversation, to show me that I was a part of the team and yadda boring yadda. Whatever, I didn't need his stupid fucking pity. I just glanced at him for a moment, wishing that my mask didn't cover the annoyed look I was sending his way before turning my attention back to the floor.

"Movement," Anderson, our driver interrupted a second later before Gallant could say anything else.

We all looked back to the spot that Clockblocker had pointed out. I didn't see what he meant at first, but then Vista pointed up a bit. "There, on top of the overpass."

Sure enough, that obnoxious little shit that called himself fucking Regent of all things was perched up there, his hand extended. Before any of us could say anything else, his hand twitched. An instant later, the armored car ahead of us went spinning out of control, almost flipping over before it slammed straight-on into the inner wall of the underpass and began billowing smoke.

We had time to see two figures approach the crashed vehicle from the opposite end of the underpass before a pitch black cloud poured out from one of them to hide them from sight.

Our own van screeched to a stop, and Aegis shoved the back door open. "Go, move!" Everyone else piled out, but his hand caught me by the arm before I could follow suit. His gaze was intense. "Look, your bolts have the best chance of taking down Grue from outside his darkness. And you're a good enough shot to pull it off. But I need to know you've got things under control. Can you handle it?"

As tempted as I was to jerk my arm free, I took a breath and resisted the urge. Instead, I gave him a sharp nod, maybe too sharp. "I'm fine. No maiming or killing, I get the fucking concept."

"You were right about getting those civilians out of those houses last night," Aegis said quietly. "That's why I'm giving you a chance now. Please, don't make me look like an idiot. Knock out Grue so we can take him in and show Piggot that you can do this the right way. That's how you shut her up."

This time, I did wrench my arm free before shoving my way out of the van. "Don't do me any favors." In the distance, there was already shouting. Apparently the Undersiders had found out that the car they'd been hitting wasn't exactly helpless after all, thanks to Faultline and her band of misfits.

Beside me, Vista made a sharp gesture with one hand, and the space between the top of the overpass and where we stood instantly shrank down to almost nothing. As soon as it did, Clockblocker went through, nearly managing to tag Regent in his first swipe if the little prick hadn't frantically tossed his hand up to throw Clockblocker's own arm off course with his power.

Before Vista could fix that area of space, I took advantage of it as well, throwing myself through to the top of the overpass. My target wasn't Regent, however. Clockblocker and whoever else wanted to could deal with that. I'd been given permission to go after Grue, so that's what I was going to do.

Running from one side of the overpass to the other while pulling my crossbows off my belt, I launched myself off of it while jumping into my shadow-state to propel myself further. In mid-air, I turned around and let myself fall backwards. One good shot, I just needed one good shot and this particular fight would be over. I knew for a fact that my bolts would go right through Grue's costume. He'd be on the ground and Piggot would have to shut the fuck up about me being out of control every time that son of a bitch's name was brought up.

As I fell, my eyes found my target as he came backpedaling into view. Some weird slime stuff shot past the jackass and narrowly missed him, most likely shot by that obese freak from Faultline's group.

Grinning behind my mask at the realization of how distracted Grue was, I pointed both crossbows at him, adjusted for the wind, and then let the bolts fly. An instant later I landed on the ground in a crouch.

My shots were on course, and I was already smiling about how easy this had been when they abruptly vanished in midair. One second they had been flying straight at Grue, and the next, they were just gone.

Then that new bitch that the Undersiders had just picked up, the one that thought she was some stupid magician or whatever appeared by sweeping some kind of cloak out of the way. She was holding both of my bolts while sweeping into some kind of grand bow. "Whooo! Bolts of certain doom, zero, Nimue The Astonishing, one!" Flipping the bolts around in the air, she faced me with an obvious grin. "No need for all the arrows, Cupid. I fell for you the second I saw what those pants did for your legs."

Growling, I lunged back to my feet and went straight for the girl. She wanted to get in my way, then fine. I'd deal with both her **and** Grue, then drag the two of them into Pig-Out's office myself. If that didn't shut Fatty McFuckface up and get her off my case, nothing would.

To her credit, the girl waited for me, a bolt in each of her hands. I aimed a shot at her leg, but she danced out of the way. Unfortunately for the magician chick, doing so put her right where I was already kicking, and my foot took her in the stomach. I felt some kind of padding there, but she still went down and the top hat that she wore went flying. My next shot from the other crossbow hit the pavement where she had been lying just before rolling aside. Fuck, she was quicker than I'd thought.

Her leg kicked out for mine, but I jumped to my shadow-state and took aim once more. Before I could fire again though, she held her hand up. I saw that, in addition to one of my bolts, she also held what looked suspiciously like an actual magic wand. My eyes barely had time to take that in before a flash of intense light from the stick blinded me for a second.

I was reeling, and briefly solid when some weird kind of rope fell over my arms. It squirmed like a living thing, tangling itself up with my crossbows to tie them together. Both fell from my hands in a heap, and I narrowly avoided my own knock-out bolt as the bitch gave it a toss toward me.

She was back on her feet by the time I could see again, and gave me a wave with the hand that still held my other bolt. "You mind if I keep this, babe? Sort of a memento of our beautiful time together."

"No problem," I managed to retort. "In fact, let me give you another one." Yanking one of my other spare bolts free, I hopped over my fallen and tangled crossbows and lunged for her.

We traded blows for a few seconds. I'd stab the bolt toward her side and the girl would either block or evade it, then try to hit me with the other bolt. She was definitely faster and more skilled than I would have thought, and every time I tried to use my own powers to get an advantage, the bitch managed to counter it somehow with one of her stupid 'magic tricks.'

Worse, she wouldn't shut up the entire time. Every time I did anything, she made some remark about how flexible I was, or how much she wished that I'd do that move again.

It felt like our fight had lasted for minutes, but I had enough experience to know that it was probably only fifteen seconds or so of intense back and forth brawling that left neither of us with much of an advantage. My shadow-state meant that she couldn't hit me with the bolt she'd stolen, but the bitch was too fast and tricky for me to put her down either.

Above us, I could hear loud howling from Hellhound's dogs, followed by a deafening crash and the voice of what sounded like a younger girl shouting, "Fuck you and your lame dogs, my boys are tougher, bitch!"

The magician's attention flicked upward at that, and I took advantage by catching hold of her arm while stepping in closer. My other hand lashed downward, right on course for her exposed side.

I would have had her. I _**should**_ have had her. But the slippery little cunt did _something_ with her arm, slipping it free of my grasp while twisting aside to let the point of the bolt hit her cape rather than her body. At the same time, she reversed our positions, trapping my arm up before giving me a heave that sent me to the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

But not hard enough to stop me from kicking out with my leg. That time I nailed the bitch and she went down as well.

Both of us rolled away from each other, and I found myself next to my tied-together crossbows. She was back on her feet, aiming that blinding wand at me, but I managed to bring the tangled weapons up and got off a single shot before she could use it.

She dodged, of course, but there was no need. The bolt wasn't meant for her. Instead, I smiled behind my mask at the sound of Grue crying out as the bolt struck home, right in the middle of his back.

He collapsed a moment later, and I had the pleasure of seeing an actual grimace cross the lower half of the cocky magician's face.

One Undersider down, and from the sound of things, none of the rest were faring much better. I'd been right earlier. This was going to be a very good night.

 **4-06 – Taylor**

Some time later, Elle and I were sitting across from each other in the back of the van that Faultline was driving. I had been disguised with a simple padded jumpsuit that made me have even less of a figure than I'd already had (something I'd previously thought was impossible), and a black ski mask that hid my face for now, though Faultline had promised that they would look into something a bit better once there was time. For the moment, they just wanted to make sure I wasn't recognized immediately if anyone happened to spot me at any point during all of this.

Our vehicle was traveling ahead of the armored car to check on the route. Meanwhile, Spitfire and Mockshow were in a trailing car, Gregor was in a truck of his own that kept alternating its position, and Newter was staying inside the Medhall vehicle itself, since a single touch of his sweat or saliva would instantly disable any would-be thieves that made it that far.

Faultline had also guessed that the local Wards would show up at some point, or even possibly a Protectorate member or two considering the information she had provided the PRT, but we didn't know where they were positioned or if they had even taken her completely seriously.

While driving, Faultline was quizzing me about my powers in a way that she hadn't been able to before, using Labyrinth as a go-between. "So, you're saying that you can either see some panoptic view of everything in a certain area that gets larger the longer you stay in that, ahh, mode, or you jump into the head of someone else and see through their eyes, and feel what they're feeling." Glancing over her shoulder at first me, then Labyrinth, she asked, "Does that sum it up all right?"

My vision was trying to wander, but I forced my attention back onto Elle. It was easier with her than pretty much anyone else. It had always been hard for me to control where my vision went, but it was becoming easier in the last twenty-four hours or so. Especially with Labyrinth. I barely had to try to jump into her head. Maybe because she liked it when I was there with her. She was... welcoming.

 _Can you tell her, 'yes'?_ I thought toward the girl whose anxious and curious mind I was inhabiting. Her eyes kept staring at my body, and I could see large, colorful flowers growing up around it, while the seat itself had transformed into a grassy hill of sorts. It was like she was trying to make my seat softer.

Reaching out to pluck up one of the pretty flowers that had grown up around me before sniffing it curiously, Elle spoke in a soft, almost sing-song voice. "Taylor says yes."

"Well that tells us a lot more than we knew before," Faultline's voice murmured thoughtfully while her fingers drummed on the wheel. She went back to paying attention to the street for a few minutes, eyes always scanning for any kind of trap before she spoke again. "And when you **were** able to move, in response to Emily's friend being in danger, you were capable of processing all of that information instantaneously. Maybe that's why your body is shut down most of the time. You can't process that amount of data constantly. If so, that's a weakness we can work with and get you past."

It looked like she was about to say something else, but instead, she pointed up just as we passed through an underpass before hitting the button on the console for the cell phone connection to the other vehicles. "Regent's on top of the overpass. Watch your-" Before she could finish the warning, there was a squeal of tires behind us. Elle's gaze turned that way, and we both saw the armored car that we were escorting plow into the sidewall with a loud crash. This was followed almost immediately by the appearance of two other figures emerging from behind one of the cement pillars toward the end of the overpass. I recognized Grue and the magician from the briefing that Faultline had gone over. Both of them were heading straight for the damaged vehicle while Grue's darkness flooded forward to cover it.

"Labyrinth, see if you can work on making sure they can't escape," Faultline instructed while pulling the van to a stop. "Block them in if possible. I know it'll take awhile for you to get the range that you need, so just do the best you can. And Taylor... I'm going to call you V for now, until we get a better name for you. V for Victory or Vision. You just let Labyrinth know if you see anything important."

That much said, the woman slipped out of the van and headed off. I watched through Elle's eyes as the other woman departed, and the girl whose mind I was occupying murmured under her breath. "Focus, focus, have to focus. Have to stay here. Can't go anywhere. Can't travel. Have to stay." She repeated the mantra a couple of times, obviously stopping her attention from wandering much the way that my own power liked to jump my vision to random people without any input from me.

That, however, was going to change now. I couldn't just sit here doing nothing. Now that I understood my power a little bit better, I had to try to use it in a constructive way.

 _Elle,_ I thought. _Could you look straight at one of the Undersiders for a minute? I want to try to jump my vision over there so I can find out what they're up to. I'll be back as soon as I can._

"Okay, Taylor," she replied almost cheerfully while looking through the window of the van once more. I could see where Grue was back pedaling out of his own darkness as bits of Gregor's slime splattered down around him, solidifying into a hard shell a second or two after impacting the pavement.

I focused on the Undersider, willing my consciousness to move. There was a bit of resistance, but now that I knew what I was doing, and that I wasn't crazy, it was easier. My vision abruptly switched over, almost like flipping a switch. Now I was seeing through Grue's eyes as he glanced over his shoulder toward where the magician girl had just appeared, holding a couple of crossbow bolts in either hand. Beyond her, Shadow Stalker from the Wards was crouched.

The two girls engaged one another, but Grue's attention turned back to the front, where I could see several figures standing in the middle of the road. Spitfire was there, along with Gallant and Chronicler from the Wards. All of them were waving their hands around in front of themselves. A second later I realized that the very slight haze over the view was Grue's darkness. He could see through it without any problems, which meant I could too. Spitfire and the two Wards were obviously trapped in the darkness. Emily couldn't risk using her power since she didn't know where anyone was.

Another figure was there as well. Gregor had one hand on the Spitfire's shoulder to keep her with him while holding his other arm out in front of him. Occasionally, he let off another spray of quick hardening liquid that narrowly missed the darkness-generator. Clearly _he_ didn't mind using his power, since the worst it would do was trap someone rather than burn them.

A sudden howling noise followed by a crash from up above on the overpass caught Grue's attention, before Mockshow's voice taunted loudly, "Fuck you and your lame dogs, my boys are tougher, bitch!"

"Damn it," Grue muttered under his breath. Wait, no, he was talking to someone over a phone or radio of some kind. "We're getting killed out here, Tattletale. Tell Redshift she's gotta leave Bitch and Regent alone for now. She has to make her move and get in that truck or we're all fucked."

Just beyond the darkness that was (mostly) containing Gregor, Chronicler, Gallant, and Spitfire, a red and black costumed figure suddenly appeared on top of the armored car. Grue's words, and the way he suddenly focused on her, made it clear that this was Redshift. Apparently that was the name of the teleporting cape that Faultline had warned us about. Good to know.

While Grue was looking at the newly arrived girl, his anxiety suddenly spiked as something struck him in the back. I could feel his consciousness fading rapidly while he slumped forward, and my own vision abandoned him, jumped to the next possible target: the person he had just been looking at.

Now I was seeing the top of the armored car through Redshift's eyes. I could feel the girl's obvious anxiety, confusion, and fear at the whole situation. I'd thought I was in over my head, but this girl seemed completely green. She was afraid of what was happening and... it felt like... unsure of what she was doing at all. But there was also a determination there, a determination to... make up for some kind of mistake? It was hard to read completely, since I didn't get thoughts, only emotions and certain feelings tied to those emotions. But there was definite regret there, and not just for this specific situation. She felt guilty, horribly guilty, about something and any time her fear about what was going on at the moment tried to crop up, that guilt proceeded to drown it out. It kept her going in spite of her apprehension and fear from being ambushed by both the Wards and Faultline's team. My team.

Then, strangely, the world went red. I saw a red haze settle over my view, before the girl dropped down _through_ the roof of the armored car and inside, bypassing the roof like it wasn't even there.

Wait, huh? What was going on? I was immediately confused. She was supposed to be a teleporter, according to Faultline. She wasn't supposed to be able to turn intangible or whatever. What the hell?

The inside of the armored vehicle had a red haze over it as well. Two uniformed security guards with high tech rifles were pointing their weapons at the doors of the vehicle, while Newter clung to the ceiling above the doors. All of them were ready and waiting for any intruder.

And all of them were frozen. None of them were moving. **Nothing** was, I realized. Everything within this red haze was completely unnaturally still. I could see a bead of sweat on the face of one of the security guards that had started to drip off of his cheek before he was frozen like that.

They weren't just being patient, this was a cape effect. Was she... was Redshift stopping _**time**_? Was that her deal? She didn't teleport, she stopped time, moved, even through walls, and then restarted it.

She also seemed to be in a rush, in spite of time being stopped. Did it have a duration or something? While I was trying to work that out, and wondering what would happen if my attention jumped over to someone else while time was halted, the girl produced a pair of small, hand-held stun guns from her pockets. Stepping up behind the frozen guards, she held the weapons up right near them.

Time went back to normal, the red haze vanishing while the guard on the left spoke, obviously continuing a sentence he had already started. "-ver comes through those doors-"

That was as far as he got before Redshift hit him and his partner with her stun guns. Both men jerked and fell to the floor, twitching violently while their weapons clattered to the floor.

Newter spun on the ceiling, already lunging down toward the girl when her vision went red again and he was frozen in mid-leap. I'd felt her fear suddenly spike along with her adrenaline, and it took the girl a second to look away from the figure that had been dropping on top of her. She looked toward the front of the compartment, where several metal boxes sat with padlocks on them. Studying the boxes for a few seconds, she then floated off the floor and right out of the armored car.

Sure enough, everything out here was frozen as well. Redshift floated down onto the embankment next to the girl in the purple and black costume that had to be Tattletale before restarting time.

"The guards are down," Redshift whispered quickly. "But that orange guy with the tail is in there too." Her voice, muffled through her mask, made me twitch for some reason. Something about it made me want to grind my teeth together, if I'd been in control of them at the time.

"Newter," Tattletale cursed after saying the name before nodding. "Okay, we'll just have to grab everything we can and run. Let the boss pick out what part he actually needs later. For now, you head in as soon as I distract Newter and get his attention on me. We have to hurry, Bitch says Grue's down. She's retrieving him, but we've gotta go."

Before I could focus too much on the revelation that the Undersiders apparently had a boss, Faultline's voice interrupted. "Don't be in such a rush, Tattletale."

Redshift gasped and jerked backwards as the woman herself emerged from behind a pillar, focused on them. "You and all your friends can spend all the time you like together in jail for a few months."

Tattletale had jerked around as well, and I could see through Redshift's eyes as the blonde girl's hand went behind her back. She was holding a cell phone with the screen active, her fingers typing on it while she focused on Faultline. "Hey, what happened? Did all the contracts outside the city dry up so you have to slum it here?"

"You're fishing," Faultline replied simply. "And you're still not as smart as you think you are, Tattletale. Let me see your other hand, right now. Trust me, knowing things about people won't save you from getting your ass kicked right now if you don't do what you're told."

"You're forgetting something though." Tattletale's own voice was casual, though her thumb was working its way over the touch screen of the phone at lightning speed. "I don't have just one super power. I'm also a teenage girl. So I have the power that all of us have.

Redshift's gaze flicked down to the phone. Since she was standing so close, I could see the words on the screen. It was a part of a conversation between T, obviously Tattletale, and L.

 _L: Set, babe. Ready 4 ur signal._

 _T: Wait until they commit all their forces. If Faultline's here, we have to hit her first._

 _L: Waiting_

Finally there was the last line, the message that Tattletale had just sent. It read, _T: F Line in front of me. Hit her at the count of ten after u get this._

As soon as I read that, my vision jumped back to the van, where my body was. Labyrinth was still sitting next to me, her attention focused through the windows.

 _Elle!_ I thought at her while jumping myself into her head. _Tell Faultline to duck! Duck now!_

To her credit, the distracted girl spoke up into her communicator immediately. "Faultline, duck!"

I hoped the woman had gotten our message in time, because there was a sudden series of explosive noises, followed by a loud droning sound, almost like a helicopter.

As Elle peered out the window to see what was going on, we could see three figures, two male and one female, descending into view. The males were being carried by what looked like actual jetpacks, while the female looked like she was literally walking on air, descending a flight of invisible stairs. All three were carrying ludicrously oversized sci-fi guns that were more like hand-held cannons.

"Never fear, Undersiders!" The larger, more muscular of the two males announced in a broad, movie-announcer voice. "As long as your money's good, we've got your back!"

Belatedly, I realized who it was. The guys were Uber and Leet, the two mostly goofy villains who were focused on their video-game themed heists. Which meant that the girl who was with them had to be the new partner they'd picked up about a month before those bitches had shoved me into the locker. All I knew about her was that she went by the name of Hax, and her power had something to do with manipulating friction, increasing or lowering it. That's how she was walking through the air. She was raising the air-friction enough to allow her feet to actually 'step' on it.

So the Undersiders had hired Uber, Leet, and Hax to serve as their back-up. This whole situation was suddenly a lot more complicated...

 **4-07 – Emma**

One second, everything was going according to plan. Tattletale and I were on our way toward the back of the armored car that Regent had just forced to crash, while Grue and Nimue were coming in from the front to deal with the driver and his passenger. This was going to be a quick, in-and-out job. We'd get the documents that the Undersiders' boss wanted, and no one would actually get hurt.

Then things went wrong. Tattletale caught me by the arm, yanking me to a stop before pointing back down the road. "Fuck," she cursed. "We've got trouble."

Looking back the way she had pointed, I saw a van parked haphazardly in the middle of the road, blocking two different lanes. The back doors of the van had opened, and... oh fuck, the Wards emerged.

"How did they get here _already?_ " I demanded in spite of myself just before our attention was drawn to two more vehicles that had stopped. Their doors opened, and I saw three more obvious capes emerge, a girl in some kind of gas mask, an obese man with translucent skin, and a smaller girl who wore a hard mask that had a smiley face emblazoned on it, and bits of metal that looked like antennae sticking up. All three of them were making a beeline for the underpass where the armored car had crashed.

Before I could ask what **they** were doing there, Tattletale cursed again. "Wards **and** Faultline? Why didn't he-" Glancing to me, she stopped talking. "Never mind, we've got to-"

But by that point, my eyes had found Sophia. She was there in costume, just coming out of the van behind Clockblocker and ahead of Aegis. Just the _sight_ of her made my skin crawl for a second.

I could see Vista make some kind of gesture with her hand, and it looked like something happened to the air in front of and above her. In the next second, Clockblocker jumped through that distortion, and the weird, contorted view took him from the middle of the road to right above us.

When Sophia followed suit, leaping through the distorted air as well, my eyes widened. "Regent." If Clockblocker tagged him, or if Sophia managed to knock him out with one of her darts (or, given this was Sophia I was talking about, did anything worse to him), it could be very bad. Especially if Clockblocker got him, since that could be as long as ten minutes that he'd be frozen right where he was. Nothing we could do would get Regent moving again, which would mean we'd either all get caught, or be forced to leave him behind. And I had no doubt that if Sophia knocked Regent out, Clockblocker would tag him just to make sure we couldn't recover him and escape.

"Gotta help him!" I blurted before taking a deep breath and freezing time just as Tattletale started to say something. As soon as the red-haze came over everything, I floated up off the ground and through the roof of the underpass to the road above, where Regent was lying on his back with Clockblocker poised over him with his hand outstretched, though clearly off course. Regent's own hand was up and twisted slightly, obviously using his power to make Clockblocker's grasping hand miss its mark.

Sophia, on the other hand, was nowhere in sight. It took me a frantic moment before I finally spotted her, coming down on the far side of the underpass. She hadn't been focused on Regent after all. Instead, she had put herself where Nimue and Grue were, slightly ahead of yet another car that had stopped to let out Faultline herself. Because that was what this situation had clearly needed: more capes.

I was tempted to go after Sophia myself, but I still had to help Regent. I wasn't sure how often he could make Clockblocker miss him or trip before the Ward got a lucky grab in, and the second that happened, the fight would be over for him. And for the rest of us in short order, probably.

Okay, okay. I had to help Regent get far enough away from Clockblocker that he couldn't be grabbed so easily. But I couldn't jump into my time-freeze with anyone else. That I knew for a fact, because I'd tried to once with Anne while she was sleeping. Creepy, maybe, but it had been the only way to test without letting someone know about me. I'd just touched her arm and activated my power while focusing on bringing her with me. Time had frozen, but she hadn't been been brought into it.

So saving Regent that way was off the table, as convenient as it would have been. No, I needed something that would stop Clockblocker in his tracks long enough for the other boy to retreat.

I could use the stun guns that Tattletale had provided to deal with the guards, but that would have involved getting close enough to the boy that he could grab me, and I didn't trust the electricity to work through his body armor. At least, not fast enough to stop him from lashing out no matter what side I hit him from. No, the stun guns were out too. I needed a better idea, something else that would stop him.

To that end, I turned to the side where a car was frozen. Hoping that it would have what I wanted, I sprinted that way, phasing right through the front and into the car itself, where I found the driver holding up a cell phone to record the struggle that was happening between the two boys.

What I wanted wasn't in the front or back seats of the car, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold my breath much longer at this rate. If it wasn't in the trunk, I was going to have to try something else.

Thankfully, I got lucky, sort of. The blanket that I'd hoped for wasn't there, but I did find some kind of rain tarp that should work just as well, hopefully.

Putting my hand near it while curling up in the trunk to make sure that no part of me was inside anything solid, I let time go back to normal long enough to grab the tarp. Taking another deep breath while praying that it hadn't been long enough for Regent to get tagged, I froze time again.

With the tarp clutched to my chest, I floated out of the car and went straight for where the boys were. Regent, thankfully, still looked like he was mobile. Err, rather, like he would have been mobile if I hadn't frozen time for the moment. He was still clearly back pedaling.

Holding the tarp folded up behind my back, I put myself mostly between the two of them. After making sure that I was far enough away from the Ward that he couldn't easily touch me, I let time go again.

Regent yelped while scrambling away from Clockblocker. "Bad touch, bad touch! I need an adult!"

I'd meant to say something pithy, but hearing that made me choke. Thankfully, simply appearing in the middle of them caught the hero's attention well enough, and I immediately became his new target.

I waited until his hand had _nearly_ touched me before freezing time once more. As the red-field came back, I immediately unfurled the tarp that I had found. Stepping to the side, I shook the tarp out a couple of times and judged the distance. Then I swung the tarp all the way up so that it was over the white-costumed boy and on its way down before letting time go again.

I had timed it perfectly, and the tarp fell over Clockblocker, including his outstretched hand. He instinctively activated his power when his fingers came into contact with the edge of it, obviously thinking in that brief instant that he was touching me, not realizing what was starting to block his view.

The second the boy used his power, the borrowed tarp was frozen in time, locked in place where it had fallen: over top of him. Clockblocker was trapped right where he was standing until his power eventually ran out. As far as I knew, he couldn't control how long that was, so he could be stuck there anywhere from thirty seconds to a solid ten minutes.

I could hear him cursing, and couldn't help the brief grin that appeared before I turned toward Regent. The other boy had picked himself up by that point, and sighed in a high, dreamy falsetto. "My hero."

In spite of myself, I bowed for him. It was probably stupid given our situation, but I couldn't help it.

Before I could actually say anything, however, we had more company as Aegis landed near the trapped Clockblocker, letting go of Vista whom he had been carrying before flying straight at me.

His flight went off course at a gesture from Regent, and the Ward plowed into the pavement while Vista shouted his name. Then her attention turned the two of us, and I could sense the young girl glaring even through the green visor that obscured the top half of her face.

Still standing about fifteen feet away from us, she made a sharp gesture with one hand, then lashed out with the other. Before I could even think about freezing time again, and in spite of the distance between us, the flat of her palm connected hard with my temple, knocking my head backwards painfully.  
I yelped, just as Vista made another gesture and drove her elbow sideways. The air between us twisted, and her elbow nailed Regent in the gut, doubling him over.

One more gesture with both hands twisted space yet again, before the youngest Ward dropped into a low kick that _somehow_ connected with the **back** of both of our legs so that Regent and I were both knocked to the pavement. All of it happened so quickly, and so surprisingly given the source, that I didn't have time to focus on my own power long enough to stop it. It was a three-count thing. One, I was smacked in the head. Two, Regent was nailed with that elbow. Three, we were on the ground.

Worse, Aegis was back up and turning toward us by then. As he took a step our way, however, the sound of heavy, pounding feet drew all of our attention to the other end of the overpass. Sure enough, all three of Bitch's dogs, one carrying their mistress, were racing straight for us, going around and over cars that were in their way.

The one carrying Bitch caught Aegis in his mouth and shook him around like a rag doll, while both of the others went straight for Vista. The girl was forced to retreat further down the street, shrinking the distance behind her before lengthening it again once she was through. She didn't seem happy.

Both of the massive, temporarily mutated animals howled and then started to give chase. Before they got further than a couple of steps however, a pick-up truck came running in out of nowhere to slam into the nearest dog hard enough to knock the massive animal to the ground.

Wait a second, 'truck came running?' My brain reviewed that sentence in disbelief for a moment while I crouched there and stared. Yes, the truck that had hit one of Bitch's dogs had _run_ up. Its lower half was twisted around, metal and wheels bent to form thick-set legs that let it charge in like some kind of monstrous metal rhino or something.

The smaller girl that I had seen earlier alongside the one in the gas mask, the one that was apparently connected to Faultline's group, stood on top of a second transformed truck. Her shout echoed through the air. "Fuck you and your lame dogs, my boys are tougher, bitch!"

If Bitch had been angry with _me_ , she was downright blind with fury at the sight of one of her dogs on the ground. It didn't look all that hurt, but she still whistled sharply. The dog she was riding spat Aegis onto the ground before charging straight for where her new-found opponent was.

Before I could see what happened next, Tattletale's voice called up from below. "Redshift, the car!"

Glancing toward Regent to find the boy already helping Bitch by stopping Vista from interfering, I froze time once again. Tattletale was right, I needed to get in that armored car so we could get the hell out of here. The longer this went on, the higher chance that all of us were going to get caught.

Sinking back through the pavement, I put myself on top of the target vehicle and let time go back to normal for a few seconds. I really wanted to do this with a full set of lungs, so I took the time to breathe deep. Then I let time freeze and sank through the armored shell of the vehicle to reach the interior.

The good news was that the two guards were there, just as we had expected. There was also several padlocked metal boxes. So, as far as that went, our information was just right.

Unfortunately, the two armed guards weren't alone. My eyes widened a bit behind the red lenses that covered them at the sight of someone _else_ in here with us. A boy with orange skin and an actual _tail_ was perched against the ceiling of the vehicle right in front of the doors, waiting to ambush anyone that came through them.

Shit. I didn't know what his powers were. I had no idea what he was capable of. Opening the doors wasn't going to happen at this rate, not with him in the way. I could, however, still do the next part of the plan by dealing with the guards themselves.

To that end, I reached into my pockets and withdrew the two small stun guns that I had been given for precisely this purpose. Stepping up behind the men, I braced myself while lifting the weapons and let time go forward again.

"-ver comes through those doors-" One of the men was saying, just before the stun guns hit both him and the other guy. They convulsed and dropped both their weapons and themselves.

Then the orange guy was leaping down at me, the speed of his reaction almost too fast. I managed to freeze time just before he would have reached me, then stood there for a brief moment to stare at his outstretched hands while trying to get my heart back under control.

I forced my attention away from him and to the metal boxes for a few seconds while I tried to think of what I should do. As close as he was, I couldn't just grab the papers myself. Not when I had no idea what his powers actually were.

Instead, I exited the vehicle and floated my way straight to Tattletale to tell her what was happening.

Unfortunately, just as the other girl was telling me how she was going to distract the guy (whose name was Newter apparently), and letting me know that Grue was unconscious, another voice spoke up.

"Don't be in such a rush, Tattletale."

As I jerked in surprise, I could see the other girl stiffen. She turned toward the voice, the hand holding her phone already moving behind her back.

Faultline was there, talking casually. "You and all your friends can spend all the time you like together in jail for a few months."

"Hey," Tattletale spoke up. I could see her fingers moving over her cell phone to type at the same time. "What happened? Did all the contracts outside the city dry up so you have to slum it here?"

On the screen of her phone, I could see the conversation that she was having.

 _L: Set, babe. Ready 4 ur signal._

 _T: Wait until they commit all their forces. If Faultline's here, we have to hit her first._

 _L: Waiting._

L? Who the hell was L? And what was this all about? Did we have reinforcements that I didn't know about?

Tattletale's fingers typed out a new message while Faultline informed her that she was fishing, and that she wasn't as smart as she thought she was. Then she ordered the other girl to show her what was behind her back while adding that knowing things wouldn't stop her from getting her ass kicked.

But Tattletale didn't seem all that concerned. She simply replied, "You're forgetting something though. I don't have just one super power. I'm also a teenage girl. So I have the power that all of us have."

By that time, she had already finished her message, which read, _T: F Line in front of me. Hit her at the count of ten after you get this._

She took her hand out from behind her back then, holding the phone up with the screen out of Faultline's sight. I could hear the smile in her voice as she finished what she had been saying. "I'm really, really good at texting."

Faultline's head twitched to the side slightly as if she was listening to something. Then she hurled herself sideways, _just_ as a blast of energy came shooting down right where the woman had been. It missed, but the follow-up shots forced her to retreat, throwing herself further down the embankment.

"What the-" I started to ask.

"I'll explain later!" Tattletale spun toward me and pointed. "Get those boxes, hurry! And watch out for Newter. If any of his sweat or saliva touches your skin, you'll be—well let's just say you'll be out of the fight. You should be good in that costume though, just make sure you don't let him see any skin."

"But shouldn't we just go?"

For a brief instant after I asked that, I thought that Tattletale almost looked... scared. "We **have** to get what we came for. Look for folders with metal tabs sticking out, those are the ones we want. Metal tabs." As she spoke, the other girl stooped to grab a pair of bolt cutters from the ground, tossing them to me. "Hurry!"

After catching the bolt cutters, I wanted to ask why it was so important. Instead, I winced and froze time once more. Then I went back to the truck, floating through the back doors and found Newter waiting. He was perched on top of the large metal crates, protecting them like some kind of jealous dragon.

Producing one of my stun guns while holding the bolt cutters behind my back, I let time resume while standing there in front of the doors. I let the electricity crackle as I held the weapon up. "Hey, Newter," I tried to keep my voice steady enough to taunt. It still cracked somewhat. "You wanna see which one of us is faster at disabling the other?"

In the background, I could hear a booming voice outside, though I couldn't tell what was being said.

Newter took the bait though, lunging toward me once more. As soon as he did, I took a breath and froze time. Screw a fair fight, I didn't want to _fight_ him at all. Instead, I floated across the interior of the vehicle and right through the boy to reach the boxes.

Still holding my breath, I poked my head through one of the three crates. Metal tabs, metal tabs, please have metal tabs. No, just plain folders.

The next metal crate was much the same, and I quickly put my head through the third one, finally finding the large stack of folders with metal tabs that Tattletale had been talking about.

Withdrawing my head, I positioned the bolt cutters against the padlock and restarted time just long enough to shove the tool closed, cutting through the lock. It was harder than I'd expected, but I managed it with a grunt.

Meanwhile, Newter had hit the doors and was starting to rebound. I dropped the cutters, yanked the broken padlock out, and jerked the crate open before freezing time once more.

Glancing over my shoulder then, I found Newter's fist within a couple inches of my face. He'd almost hit the back of my head before I froze everything.

Quickly, I positioned myself and held the stun gun up. I estimated where his fist would be at full extension, and then put the end of the stun gun right there. After making sure I was ready, I restarted time and triggered the weapon immediately.

Newter's fist hit the electricity. He yelped and jerked backwards, while the stun gun was smacked out of my hand by the force of his blow. Still, he was out of commission for at least a few seconds.

I took advantage of that, turning back toward the opened box. Reaching out, I gathered up as many of the metal-tabbed folders as I could, hauling them up into my arms.

I was already feeling a little dizzy from using my power so much, but I had to use it at least one more time. Bracing myself, I let time freeze again before retreating from the armored car with my armful of folders.

Outside the truck, I found Tattletale standing next to one of Bitch's dogs. The poor thing looked a bit beat up, but he was still mobile. Grue was lying motionless across the thing's back.

Letting time resume, I showed the other girl my armful of folders.

"Let me see," she instructed. In the background, I could hear shouting and laser fire.

After I obliged by dumping my cargo on the ground, Tattletale crouched and ran her hands over all of them, flipping through a couple before grabbing three in particular. "Got it, got it! Let's go!" She tucked the folders into a bag before turning to haul herself up onto the animal, behind Grue's unconscious form.

I followed suit after a momentary hesitation, needing a break from my power for at least a few moments. Just as I did, the animal jerked backwards, nearly bucking me off in the process.

Before I could wonder if Bitch had instilled her distrust of me in her pets, I realized what had caused the thing to jerk away. Right where it had been standing, a puddle of weird glue stuff lay.

That obese man was approaching, holding his arm out to fire another blast of the stuff. Before he could, the mutated dog rounded and sprinted the other way. I was barely able to hold on, and it was a good thing that Grue was strapped down or he would have flown right off.

I still had no idea who those reinforcements that had shot at Faultline were, or where they'd come from. But we had what we'd come for. It was time to get the hell out of here.

If we could.

 **4-08 – Madison**

"Oh. Oh jeeze." Crystal's first words following my outpouring of explanation that evening weren't exactly encouraging. She sat across from me in the back of the Chinese buffet we had gone to after I met her that evening. At her urging, we had met in costume. She said she wanted to teach me how this sort of thing worked.

The staff had taken one look at our costumes before ushering us into the back. They had private booths with special sound dampening shades that allowed capes to take off their masks to eat without exposing themselves. Since it was a buffet, masks could just be put back on whenever we went to fill up our plates, and there was a counter beside the booth to put dirty dishes on for the staff to take away without bothering the people inside. Crystal had been staring at me without touching her food ever since I started talking about Taylor and what I had helped do to her. She hadn't interrupted, though it looked like she wanted to a couple times.

Still, I pressed on through it. I was scared that she would tell her parents that they'd made a mistake and that a monster like me shouldn't be anywhere near their team. I was ashamed of every word that came out of my mouth, and I desperately wanted to stop talking or at least look away from her.

But I didn't do either. I forced myself to keep talking, to keep describing everything in detail so that she would know exactly how bad it had been. And through it all, I kept my gaze on the other girl. Though tears tried to take over my vision with each word, I blinked them away and kept talking.

After those initial words, Crystal simply sat there and stared at me. I couldn't figure out what she was thinking, but there was a lot going on behind her eyes. She'd looked repulsed through part of what I had said, angry at others, and sometimes sad. Now she just looked blank, as if she was trying to figure out how she felt about all of it. Her mouth opened once or twice to say something, but she stopped herself.

Finally, the beautiful girl dropped her gaze away from me to stare down at the table. I saw a shudder go through her before she looked up again. "You... did all that? You really hurt that girl. Why?"

I wanted to recoil from the words, wanted to hide myself away and never be forced to see Crystal, or anyone else, look at me that way. I barely _knew_ her, and yet the disappointment in both her gaze and her words was enough to force tears back to my eyes in spite of myself. My own voice felt hollow and empty, "I don't-" Stopping myself, I closed my eyes and shook my head rapidly. That was wrong. "No, I do know. I know why I did it, why I kept doing it. Why I never stopped until it was too late."

Opening my eyes again, I looked back at her. I deserved this. I deserved the look she was giving me. "I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be special. My whole life, I-" Biting my lip, I chose my next words. "I'm spoiled, Crystal. I've been spoiled my whole life. My parents, I'm their baby. I'm their perfect little baby girl who can't do anything wrong. My teachers were the same way. I look younger than I am. I look sweet and innocent and adorable. So I just got away with stuff at home and at school. It was little stuff when I was in elementary school and junior high. Things like turning in assignments later than the teacher said was supposed to be acceptable, getting extra cake from the lunch room, just stuff like that. Little things that I... I took for granted because I always got them. Still pretty innocent, but adding up."

A low, long breath escaped me before I forced myself to continue. "But then in high school, something happened. It was... it was in art class. I had it with Sophia and Taylor. I'd noticed that they didn't get along, everyone had. I knew Sophia shoved Taylor around and tripped her and stuff, but I didn't really pay a lot of attention. I was too busy trying to figure out what I was supposed to be in high school. I was trying to decide who I was, who, what kind of person I was supposed to be, where I fit in."

I bit my lip then, nudging the food around with the chopsticks for a second before sighing as I dropped them, looking up at the girl once more. "We were painting with watercolors. I was done, and I started to take my—you know, the cup with water that I was washing my brush off with every time, so now it was nasty with all the different colors. I was taking that up to the sink to dump it out, when um, when Sophia stopped me. She put a hand on my arm and she said... she said she'd give me ten bucks if I pretended to trip and dumped my cup out into Taylor's hair.

"I... wish I could say that I thought about it. I wish I could say that I hesitated, because that would at least make me look a little better, if I had wavered. But I can't lie. I can't. I didn't even think about it, not really. I just walked that way and... and I pretended to trip. Then I poured out the cup right on the back of Taylor's head. The paint-water, it went in her hair and down the back of her neck."

I could easily remember everything that had happened, picturing it as if it had been yesterday. "Taylor... squealed and fell off her chair. Sophia was laughing, and... and some of the other kids were laughing too. It felt good, and when the teacher wanted to know what happened, I just said it was an accident. She believed me, just like Sophia knew she would. Because I look innocent. So she just told Taylor to go clean up and for me to be more careful in the future. I didn't even get a warning.

"Sophia wanted me to sit next to her after that. She talked about how great that was and how Taylor had it coming because she was such a loser. She made me feel included. She made me feel **good**. Lunch was right after that, and she asked me to sit with her and Emma. Emma was... beautiful, and really popular already. So I did. I sat with them, and Sophia had me tell Emma what I did and how it felt."

My throat tried to close up, but I forced myself to swallow hard and continue. "Things just escalated from there. I was popular, I had friends, and we had fun. Messing with Taylor, ruining her life, making her miserable, it was... it was like some kind of fucked up, stupid bonding thing."

Sighing, I shoved the plate away, disgusted. "I wish I hadn't done it. Every _**day**_ I wish I hadn't done any of it. But I can't take it back. I can't change anything about what happened. I can't—I can't make it better. All I can do is try to do good things now. And if... if you want to tell your family that I don't belong with you guys after everything that I said, I understand. I can do this myself."

"We're not going to kick you out for doing some bad shit, Madison." Crystal shook her head, hand moving to touch my arm. "You made a lot of mistakes, no question. But you're trying to make up for them now. You were so upset by what happened, that you... you triggered. I'm pretty sure that proves that you really, really do feel guilty about all of it."

I frowned, blinking up at her when she said that. "Triggered? What do you mean?"

"Oh, umm, triggered." She started to explain. "It's how capes get their powers. I mean, usually it comes after something really traumatic happens. Like say, realizing what kind of horrible, evil bitch you had to be if the person you were tormenting ends up in a catatonic state. That level of guilt, that level self-hatred, that's what made you trigger. That's what gave you your powers."

"I—oh god, I'm gonna be sick." I covered my mouth, shuddering at the thought that Taylor's _misery_ had prompted my own powers. Of course, part of me had known that there had to be a connection, that the timing was too perfect otherwise. But to hear it spelled out like that, to hear it said so flatly, that Taylor's condition had brought on my own powers, made me physically sick.

"I can't," I shook my head frantically. "I can't use them. I can't use my powers if they're here because of Taylor's condition. How is that fair? How is that—god, I'm going to..."

"Hey, hey." Catching my hand as I all-but flailed, Crystal shook her head. "Look at me, look. No. Your powers aren't here because of what you did to that girl. They aren't a gift for what you put her through. If they were, you would have gotten them while you were torturing her, not after you decided to stop. They're here because of your **guilt** , Madison. It's your guilt that drove you to trigger. And now you have a chance to help people. So you can wallow in your misery and self-condemnation, hating yourself and accomplishing nothing. Or you can use the powers you've got to help other people who are in trouble."

Swallowing back my emotions, I breathed out and looked up at her. "H-helping people. That's what I want to do. I—I have to do that. I have to try, at least. I really, really want to help people."

She didn't smile, but she did nod back at me while squeezing my hand. "Good. Then-" In mid-sentence, her phone buzzed from where it sat on the table near her plate. Without releasing my hand, she picked it up and glanced at the screen before grimacing as she answered it. "Mom? Uhh, yeah we're at the Jade Dragon, like I said. What? Yeah, that's like two blocks over, why? What? Oh—yeah, yeah I'll go right there. Yes, mom, I'll be careful, I promise. Hurry though." Disconnecting the phone, she let go of my hand and stood.

My eyes were wide as I stared up at her. "What's going on? What was all that about?"

"Apparently there's a couple capes making nuisances of themselves," she replied while adjusting her pink visor. "Trainwreck and Chariot, from Coil's band. They're breaking into the Medhall building."

I blinked at that, grabbing my cheap little plastic mask. "The Medhall building? But why?"

Her head shook. "I don't know, but apparently there's something else going on across town. The Undersiders tried to hit one of Medhall's armored cars. There's something weird going on."

Crystal hesitated then before looking at me. "Your choice, I can give you cab fare home, or you can come with me. I wouldn't blame you for sitting this one out, after the night you had."

As tempting as it was, I shook my head. "I want to help. I—you heard what I did, why I have to do it."

Her hand squeezed my shoulder briefly before she nodded. "All right, then mask up and let's go."

* * *

"Ready for this?" Laserdream asked a minute later as she flew over the parking lot of the Medhall building. I could see the two distinct costumed figures at the back doors, clearly forcing their way in. Several Medhall security personnel lay scattered around the lot, all clearly unconscious or injured.

The two figures we were approaching both looked like they were wearing power armor of some kind, though Crystal had taken the last minute to give me a brief rundown. Both were tinkers, though fairly different. Chariot was a tinker whose specialization lay in movement and travel. The armor he wore included some kind of hover-rocket pack, boots that increased his running speed and allowed him to travel up and down walls, and a line-of-sight teleportation trick that let him reappear anywhere that he could see. He also had some kind of force-thrusters on his hands that could be used either to propel him faster by pointing them behind or under himself, or pointed at other people and used as an attack.

Trainwreck, on the other hand, was different. The equipment he used looked like junk, almost steampunk-like rather than the smooth, futuristic look of Chariot's stuff. More importantly, he actually _attached_ his equipment to his own body, using himself like some kind of power source.

"Ready," I nodded as much as I could. My earlier enjoyment of being carried by Laserdream hadn't _entirely_ faded, though it was tempered by my nervousness of what was happening.

"Don't worry," the blonde girl promised. "You're not alone. Just use your power and you'll be fine. The others will be here soon if we need them, but this'll probably be over before they get here. Ready, and... go!" At her last words, Crystal released me, dropping me onto the pavement right behind the two figures. Then she continued flying, darting right over their heads before flipping around in mid-air to land on her feet between the two capes and the steel emergency shutter that had closed down over the door that they were trying to get through.

"Hey, boys," Laserdream all but purred the words, and I felt my heart suddenly pick up for some reason. "Pretty sure they're closed." While she spoke, the other girl lifted her hands and shot off a laser into each of their faces to make them reel backwards.

Snapping out of whatever that weird feeling had been when Crystal had spoken in that low tone, I piped up, "Maybe they've got an emergency herpes situation?"

They both looked at each other before Chariot brought up both of his hands. That force-beam of his shot out of his palms toward Laserdream, who leapt up and over it, using her flight to carry her into a flip before shooting off a single, surgical laser that cut into the boy's left gauntlet so that the force-beam coming out of it stuttered and skipped. It didn't go away entirely, but it was definitely damaged.

Clearly enraged by the damage that had been done to his equipment, Chariot launched himself off the ground using his hover-rocket pack and boots, crashing into Laserdream so that both went spinning off through the air.

I hoped she was going to be okay, but in the meantime, Trainwreck had turned his big mechanical body slightly to look at me before grunting dismissively. He swept out a massive, power-armor hand to casually knock me away from him.

At the last second, I focused on my power. The tingling field popped up around me, and when Trainswreck's power armor hand swept into the field, it instantly vanished. The metal hand and most of the arm simply disappeared, and the man was left flailing at me with his own bare arm, a strangled sound of shock emerging from behind the metal mask and goggles that he wore.

Grinning in spite of myself, I hopped up and down a couple times. "Hey, it worked! Sweet! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!" I clapped demonstratively before making a show of tilting my head to examine the spot where his power-armor hand had been. "Oooh, too soon?"

Bellowing in rage, the man came charging forward to punch me with his other metal arm. A thought brought my field up again, and a second later that mechanical limb was missing as well, leaving the man looking almost comical with his two much smaller, much weaker looking human arms exposed to the open air.

I shook my head slowly at that. "You're not exactly quick on the uptake, are you?" Wagging my foot at him, I added, "You wanna try kicking me so you can hop on one foot for awhile?"

Apparently not, because he crouched a bit before launching himself up and over my head to land a few yards past me. Then the man started running, clearly wanting nothing to do with the girl who could make parts of his metal armor vanish every time he tried to touch her.

A moment later, Laserdream landed beside me. She looked a bit bruised up, and part of her costume was torn where a blast of force from Chariot's still fully operational weapon had struck her. But she was smiling. "Mine took off too. I thought about chasing him, but I wanted to check on you." Glancing my way, she nudged me with a hip. "Looks like I should've gone with the chasing thing. You good?"

I nodded quickly. "Uh huh. He didn't touch me. And I've umm, I've sort of got his arms."

Her head tilted at that before she laughed. "Oh. Oh wow. See, Archive? You can do this hero thing."

"I agree," a new voice spoke up. When we both turned, I saw a handsome man in his mid-thirties who stood nearby. Something about him looked familiar, like I'd probably seen him on television or something before.

"Mr. Anders," Laserdream said politely. Right, the CEO of Medhall itself. What was he doing standing out here two seconds after we'd driven away the capes trying to break into his headquarters?

"Please," the handsome man held up his hands. "No need for formalities right now. Call me Max. After all, you two did just happen to stop those men from stealing something that belongs to me.

"In my book, that makes us very good friends."

 **4-09 – Taylor**

"Faultline?" For the second time since the trio of criminal reinforcements had shown up to start firing at everything that wasn't labeled Undersider, Labyrinth tried to get a response over her radio. And for the second time, we were met with silence. Not only did Faultline not respond, neither did anyone else.

Had the warning come in time? Was Faultline okay? Why wasn't anyone else answering? Had I failed at the one and only thing I should have been fairly good at for this situation, providing information?

Had the woman who had gone out of her way to help me so much been hurt because of that failure?

"Bad place... no..." The voice brought me out of my own worry, the fear and sadness within those few words almost physically painful for me to hear. It was the voice of a terrified child. For a moment, I imagined Elle, sitting alone in a dark room as the fears of a child's subconscious worked its way through her mind. But unlike a normal child, who could flip on a light-switch to see that all was normal and as it should be, Elle's power meant that her fear brought those things to life, in a way. Her room would never stay the way it should be when she was afraid. The environment around her would twist and bend itself to fit her unconscious whim. Which meant that when she was very afraid, sitting in that dark room, any attempt to turn on the light might have revealed true horrors. Her private space, her bedroom, could become a twisted, Gothic maze of brimstone littered with skeleton bones simply because her subconscious mind _thought something like that up_ while she was sitting afraid in her bed _._

It was that voice that spoke those words, that girl who sat next to my body, whose mind I was inhabiting. And it was that girl who made the seats around us transform into jagged, obsidian-like rocks while whispering, "Don't want to go to the bad place, don't want to go to the bad place, please. Please."

Without another thought, I threw myself fully into her mind. This time, I was pretty sure I actually felt something like a _pop_ as my body was brought inside her landscape. And I definitely felt the sudden increase in temperature, as I went from the inside of an air conditioned vehicle to the very edge of what looked suspiciously like a volcano that was sending dark, way-too-hot clouds of smoke billowing out.

My eyes found the other girl immediately. She was wandering along the lip of the volcano, and I caught her shoulders while calling her name. "Elle! Elle, look. It's me, Taylor. Remember? No more alone. No more being alone. Neither of us are alone anymore. You don't have to do this by yourself. I'm here."

I turned her to face me, and for a moment the pale blonde continued to stare at the ground. Then her gaze came up and she smiled, like the sun breaking through a cloud. "Taylor," she said my name happily. "You're here. But..." Her face dropped once more. "Faultline, I can't see her. I'm trying..."

She was, I could tell. The part of her that was in the real world was peering through the window of the van, still trying to raise any of the others on the radio. She could see and hear the occasional laser blast, but there was no indication of what was actually happening.

"I know," I tried to keep my voice calm so that she would calm down as well. "They're in trouble, but we can't just hide in here. We can't let our powers decide how effective we are, Elle. _**We**_ decide how effective our powers are, not the other way around. We got dealt some shitty downsides when they were handing out powers, but screw them. We control the powers, not the other way around. We're going to go out there to find out how we can help Faultline and the others. I just spent three months laying in a hospital bed promising myself that I was not going to let **anyone** push me around anymore if I ever had a chance. Now I have that chance, and I'm not going to let some stupid thugs take it away from me the first time out. So you and me, we're going back out there to kick their asses. Right?"

After gazing at me for a moment, Elle bobbed her head up and down once. "Right."

"Good, okay, so I need you to get out of the van, Elle. I'm not positive that this is going to work, but it's worth trying." I coached her, guiding the Elle within this alternate world away from the lip of the volcano. "You need to get out of the van and go to the edge of the area that you can still affect."

By half-closing my eyes in a sort of squint, I could see through other-Elle's eyes still. I saw as her gaze lingered on the empty spot where my body had been before she opened her van door and stepped out.

I could see, as Elle's gaze flicked up toward the top of the overpass, what she had done while I was busy. A tall, wooden clock tower had grown straight out of the pavement up there One of the Undersiders, the guy who wore renaissance fair clothing, was trapped at the top of that twenty-foot high clock tower, unable to risk jumping down. He was clearly unhappy about that fact as well.

But not nearly as unhappy as one of the Undersiders' massive dog-things. It was near the tower, but pinned in between three different mechanical monstrosities that looked like someone had tried to create rhinoceroses out of a couple of pick-up trucks and an SUV. The three of them had physically trapped the howling animal between them, and they weren't budging no matter how much the animal strained.

Elle stopped, her gaze flicking between the underpass and the field to the side. In the first area, we could see Redshift and Tattletale going through some folders that had been tossed onto the ground. Folders that were obviously what they had come to steal. In the other area, we could see Faultline, Spitfire, and Chronicler from the Wards surrounded by Leet, Uber, and Hax. Another Ward member, Gallant, was already lying on the ground, unmoving.

Meanwhile, high above, some kind of small portable drone flew around, clearly focused on the fight below. Right, these guys liked to broadcast their fights. That was their little camera drone that streamed their heists online. I knew there was a delay of some kind, though I wasn't sure how much of one.

As we watched in those few seconds, Faultline dropped to one knee to smack the ground. There was that flash of color, and a wide crack appeared, stretching out from where she was to the spot that Leet was standing on. It hit his foot right as he was stepping forward, catching the edge of his boot so that he stumbled. As he did, Faultline took advantage by lunging forward. She evaded the gawky-looking boy's desperate attempt to bring his weapon back in line to shoot at her, getting close enough with the next step that a casual swipe of her hand cut his gun in half. Then her elbow found his face and he went down hard.

Okay, they were up and moving. But why weren't any of them responding to their radios?

While I was wondering that, Redshift and Tattletale had apparently found what they were looking for. The two of them were on the back of another of their giant dogs, alongside the unconscious Grue. Gregor had appeared and shot some kind of sticky goo after them, and Newter was emerging from the van. But the goo missed, and the dog was starting to retreat with their prize.

Damn it, Faultline or the thing the Undersiders were trying to steal, which was I supposed to focus on?

In the end, I didn't have to choose. Shadow Stalker came leaping down from the top of the overpass. She crashed into the fleeing monster, seeming to bounce right off. But as she did so, something metal glinted in her hand, and I saw the straps that were holding Grue to the animal flap free just before the boy's body fell to the ground right beside the spot where Shadow Stalker had landed in a crouch.

That distraction was enough that Gregor's next blast of glue-goo struck the back of the mutated dog's leg, trapping the animal in place so abruptly that Tattletale and Redshift went flying off of it.

Right, good. They had that. Which meant I could focus on helping Faultline. To that end, I focused. "Elle," I addressed the one standing in front of me, though she hadn't really done much more than stand there while her outer-self or... however that worked was moving around. I had the feeling that she was actually dividing her attention between the Elle here in her other-place, and the Elle in the real world. That was why she zoned out so often, or reacted to things that didn't seem to be there. Her attention was divided between two bodies, two different selves.

"We're going to help Faultline," I told the other girl as soon as I had enough of her attention. "I don't know if this is gonna work, but we're going to try it. We just-"

I started to say something else, but Elle blurted, "Spitfire!" In the real world, Emily had just spat out a wave of flame toward Hax. But rather than dodge or in any way avoid it, the other girl actually stepped **into** the flame, passing right through it without apparent ill effect before punching Emily hard enough to knock her to the ground.

I couldn't hear what Hax said then, as she posed over the fallen Spitfire. But I knew what the gist was. I'd seen that kind of stance far too many times while one of the bitch-trio mocked me. Whoever Hax was, whatever she was capable of, she was just like my bullies. She was just like those fucking bitches.

"Elle," I spoke quietly, dangerously. "I need you to focus on pushing me from here to out there, as close to them as you can. My physical body, I mean. I don't know if it'll work, but... try. Try to push me out there, okay?" I looked toward her. "Let me help Faultline and Spitfire. I can do this. I can."

The blonde just looked at me for a moment before nodding once. "How?"

"I... umm, try physically pushing me while thinking about where you want me to go?" I guessed. "I dunno, I'm making this up as we go. But try it anyway. Just focus on putting me out there. It's just like when you summon anything else from these other-world. Put me there."

She moved behind me then, and I felt her hands on my back. "Be careful, okay?" She pleaded. I nodded, and she took a deep breath, clearly trying to focus on what she wanted.

Then I heard her whisper under her breath, so quietly I almost missed it, "Taylor, I choose you."

I looked over my shoulder at the girl, blurting, "What?"

Elle's eyes went wide and her face pinked as she realized that I had heard. "Nothing!" She squeak-squealed the denial of the reference she had clearly made, then gave my body a hard shove.

I stumbled forward... and felt soft ground and grass under my feet. I was back in the real world, and my body was standing up straight, the anger at seeing Spitfire in danger fueling the desire for combat that my power had, the only thing that gave me any real control over my own body.

It had worked, I realized with genuine surprise. I was standing, and I was in the real world, less than twenty feet from where Faultline and the others were fighting.

Now, I could help.

My sudden appearance had apparently caught everyone by surprise. Well, everyone who was still standing anyway. Chronicler had gone down in that time, holding his stomach and groaning painfully. The rest all stopped moving to stare at me for a second. I had the feeling that neither Uber nor Hax (as the two that were still standing) had any idea whose side I was supposed to be on.

They were about to find out. My view expanded, showing me the entire surrounding area. Yet my focus was on Uber and Hax. They were the ones that I wanted to stop.

I could see them, _**truly**_ see them in a way I had only experienced the night before, with those ABB goons. The obscene amount of detail about every little thing I could see flowed into my head. A glance at a single rock on the ground gave me all the information possible for where that single rock would go if I kicked it. Regardless of what angle I kicked the rock at or how hard, my brain knew what would happen to it, where it would go, and what I had to do to put that rock anywhere I wanted it. That was for a single rock, and it expanded from there. Everything I looked at, I instinctively processed every possible action and reaction that could be attached to it.

In a glance, I knew that Uber was very slightly favoring his right leg. And I also knew from her body language that Hax was about to lift her rifle and fire off a shot at me right... now.

She snapped the rifle up and fired, but I was already moving. I took a step forward, letting the shot pass harmlessly behind me. My foot lashed out to kick that rock I had focused on, shooting it straight into Uber's already-injured leg to double him over slightly before he could line up his own shot.

I was still moving, stepping forward toward Uber. Before he could recover from the sudden renewed pain in his leg, I caught the end of his laser rifle with one hand while planting my other hand against his chest. The blow made him reel, and my firm grip on his weapon stripped it away.

Without looking, since I already knew exactly where the rock would be in every instant since I had kicked it, I lashed out backwards with the weapon I had yanked away from the boy. The stock smacked into the still flying rock, sending the stone arcing straight up into the face of the girl. She wasn't wearing any kind of armor that I could see. The only thing protecting her face was a simple, thin cloth mask that left nothing but her eyes exposed.

The rock smacked the girl right in the middle of her nose, as expected. Yet she didn't reel back. She simply stood there and let the rock glance off as if it didn't hurt her at all.

"Aww, was that your best shot?" She taunted. "Gotta try harder than that, new blood."

I obliged her by letting off two quick shots from the rifle I had stripped from Uber. Both were aimed for her legs to disable the girl. This time, rather than bounce off, the shots went right _**through**_ Hax, as if she wasn't even there. What the **hell**?

In the meantime, Uber had recovered and was coming up behind me. I twisted my shoulder and head abruptly, avoiding the smack from his hand, then caught his arm and applied just enough pressure to bring him stumbling forward. Then my leg came up and around to hit his stomach.

At the last second, he managed to jerk himself backwards and twist so that my kick hit his hip instead. It still hurt him, but not nearly as much as I'd meant it to.

Then we were facing each other while the drone camera came zooming in for a closer look. Uber came in fast and hard, sending a series of punches that told me he knew exactly what he was doing. I dropped the laser rifle and moved the way my power told me to. I read his actions, knew how he was going to attack. Yet it almost wasn't enough. This wasn't a half-trained thug with a few boxing lessons. Uber was a big guy who actually knew how to fight. His blows were precise and measured, calculated to test how much he could push me.

I knew all that, even though I had never taken a self-defense course in my life. He clearly had the training and skill to be one of the best fighters in the city. Yet I was keeping up with him. We traded blows a few times, my powers advantages letting me stay pretty even with him in spite of my complete lack of experience.

Meanwhile, I could see Faultline attempting to deal with Hax. But I couldn't focus too much on it, and she didn't seem to be having any more luck than I had.

"Wha—what happened?" The groggy, confused voice of Leet came then as he lifted his head off the ground, obviously dazed.

"Use the fucking emergency teleport, now!" Hax spat the words in a rush. "We're done!"

I saw Leet press something on his arm. The drone camera stopped in mid-air, and a beam of light shot out of it to hit Leet. It scanned over him, and then he vanished from sight.

The light hit Hax a second later, and I was already moving, already reacting. My foot came down hard on the butt of the laser rifle that I had dropped earlier. It popped up off the ground, barrel coming to my reaching hand. I caught it but only long enough to give it another yank higher, getting the trigger closer to my other hand while keeping the barrel pointed upward.

Hax was gone, swallowed up by the light, and the drone had turned its attention to Uber. But I had the rifle pointed all the way up, still half-flinging it into the air without having any actual holding onto the thing. It was up near my chest, and I my hand came down to hit the trigger. The resulting beam vaporized the flying drone right before it would have teleported Uber to safety.

He had stopped fighting in that moment, expecting to be taken away. I took advantage of his mistake, spinning into a kick that knocked him to the ground, wheezing for breath.

And just like that, the fight was over. It was done, as far as my power was concerned. I dropped almost as soon as he did, my body falling as if the strings had been cut. I was on the ground, half-lying on my face before someone turned me over.

It was Spitfire. She was conscious again. "Hey, you're okay. We're okay, right? Did we win? Also, why the fuck didn't my fire do anything to that bitch? Doesn't she just control friction or whatever?"

Faultline knelt next to Uber, slapping some kind of handcuffs on him. "That'll hold him for the PRT." She looked to Spitfire then and shook her head. "No. People thought that at first, but no. Her power has nothing to do with friction. She's a Breaker. I'm not sure what number they've assigned her, but it's high. Anything she sees, she gets to decide how her body reacts to it. She walks on air by deciding that the air will be solid for her body. She shrugs off bullets by either deciding her body will be intangible or too hard for them to penetrate. She ignores flame by deciding that her body is flame-proof. Anything she focuses on, anything at all, she decides how she wants it to affect her, how her body interacts with it. Really difficult to do anything to as long as she has any idea that it's coming."

Her gaze moved up then, to focus on the approaching Gregor, who was accompanied by Vista and Aegis from the Wards. "How did we do?"

It was Aegis who answered, even as he kept a hand pressed tight over his obviously wounded chest. "Three of the Undersiders got away. Tattletale, the teleporter she was calling Redshift, and that other new one, Nimue. We have Regent, Hellhound, and, thanks to Shadow Stalker, Grue in custody, along with all three of Hellhound's animals." He sighed then. "Unfortunately, the Undersiders got away with some of the folders they were after."

Vista had moved to check on the unconscious Gallant and Chronicler, and now she nodded toward my motionless body. "Is she okay? Does she need help?"

"No," Faultline shook her head. "She was just... knocked out. She'll be fine. We take care of our own. Gregor?" She waited until the large man had stooped to scoop me up before adding, "We'll be going now. Our job was to stop that information from being stolen. We may have helped you overall, but we failed at that."

"Well... thanks for the help," Aegis said a bit awkwardly. "It was... appreciated."

Faultline lifted her chin, considering the boy briefly before nodding. Then she started to walk. Gregor and Spitfire fell in behind, and we moved to join Newter, Mockshow, and Labyrinth.

So three of the Undersiders had been captured, along with their dog-transportation. That meant three were still out there, Tattletale and the two newbies.

"I believe I am tired of this city," Gregor muttered as we walked.

"I agree," Faultline replied a moment later. "And Anders is not going to be happy that we couldn't stop Tattletale from escaping with that information. He may try to make things difficult. Maybe it's time for a change of scenery for awhile, until things cool off here.

"Taylor, what do you think of Las Vegas?"

 **Interlude 4 – Dinah**

Far beneath the busy offices of the Medhall Corporation, within the bowels of the secret subbasement, Dinah Alcott scribbled a final answer onto the bottom of the neatly printed paper she had been provided. After carefully setting the pencil down, she turned away from the desk she was seated at to look at the fourteen-year-old blonde girl who was lounging on the very same bed that Dinah had slept in the night before. "I'm done now, um," she started quietly. "Am I supposed to call you Rune still? Because I umm, sort of heard Vanessa call you Cassie."

Without looking up from the television's broadcast of some old sci-fi show, the blonde flicked her hand up. At her gesture, the paper that Dinah had been writing on floated off the desk and over to the bed. Her voice was dull with boredom. "I don't care what you call me, kid. Rune, Cassie, Encantado, Bitch—wait, no, that one's taken. Might have to get more creative with the insults."

Turning her chair to face the bed, Dinah hesitated before asking, "Encantado?"

Rune turned her attention from the television to the paper floating next to her and took it into her hand while replying absently, "Mythical creature from Brazil that kidnaps people to keep them company. Well, that and to fu-" She blinked up at Dinah, paused, and then shook her head. "Never mind. Let's just stick with keeping them company until you're a little bit older."

After perusing the paper for a few more moments, the blonde floated it back over to Dinah. "You need to fix number eleven. X doesn't equal thirty-two. And number seventeen is wrong too."

Reaching up to take the paper back, Dinah asked, "Could you please help me, um, Cassie? I don't understand why those came out wrong. I think I did the same things I did with the other questions..."

It took Rune a moment to pick up the remote and hit the button to turn off the television. Then she rose to her feet and stepped over to stand next to the chair. "Okay, let me see what you're doing."

Carefully going through the steps of the question while making sure to make the exact same mistake she had purposefully made before, Dinah listened intently while the older girl corrected her. "Ohhh, but then if you put—okay, I get it. I think. If that's twelve, then it's, oh wow. You know a lot of stuff, huh?"

The other girl simply snorted. "The trick is, most people are complete fucking retards who don't know _anything._ It's not hard to look impressive by that standard." Seemingly automatically, she added, "Plus all the chinks and other slanties infesting our fucking schools and making everything worse."

After briefly consulting her own power to ensure that she had the best possible chance of success, Dinah asked in a curious, innocent voice, "Why do you do that to yourself?"

"Do what?" Cassie asked in an absent, disinterested voice.

"You're really smart," Dinah began. "You're so smart, and you know so much, that Kaiser actually wants you to be my teacher even though you're only a couple years older than me. You're, um, academically speaking, the smartest person Kaiser knows that he can trust with me."

Folding her arms over her chest, Cassie asked dryly, "Does this ego-stroking have a point?"

Dinah nodded at that, "Uh huh. I'm just wondering something. If you're that smart, and you like learning so much, then why do you pretend to be such an idiot when it comes to race?"

For a moment, Rune just stood there and stared as if she didn't quite believe what she had just heard. When she spoke, it was with frank disbelief. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Praying that her power hadn't decided to go on the fritz, Dinah met the other girl's gaze evenly. "You read a lot of books, Cassie. You read everything you can. Not just American books. Not just 'white books.' You read everything. You knew about a Brazilian mythological monster off the top of your head. So you know this stuff isn't real. You know the stuff about white superiority isn't true. You _**know**_ it isn't, because you like learning too much not to have researched it yourself. And you're too smart to really be tricked unless you wanted to be. So why do you pretend to be stupid enough to believe it?"

It took the blonde a moment to answer. "Maybe this'll just go right over your little head," she demonstrated by waving a hand out over Dinah's hair, nearly smacking her in the forehead. "But I don't have to think an entire race is stupid or that they've never done anything worthwhile to hate them."

"Sure," Dinah nodded at that. "But the problem with learning so much, with _investigating_ so much, is that the more you read about other people, the more you find out that they're not really that different." She shrugged then. "But I guess I can't really blame you. It's like Santa Claus. If my whole family believed in Santa, really believed in him, and built our lives around Christmas, I'd keep pretending I believed in him too. No matter what else I read, or what my brain tried to tell me, I'd pretend because, I'd rather lie to myself and still be a part of my family, than tell the truth and be alone. Because being alone is bad. And going away from the only thing you know, the only people who like and accept you, who care about you, is really, **really** scary. So I'd keep pretending I believed in Santa, no matter what."

"You are just," Rune started before biting her lip hard, obviously stopping herself from saying something harsh. "Look, I'm not having this stupid fucking debate with a ten-year-old."

"You're right, you're not. I'm twelve," Dinah reminded the older girl simply, with the hint of a smile.

Cassie had no chance to respond to that, before the sound of rapidly approaching, heavy footsteps drew both of their attention to the door. A second later, it was shoved open as Max Anders practically stormed his way inside. His face was livid with anger. "Did you do this on purpose?" He demanded furiously, crossing the room to where Dinah sat. "Tell me the truth, did you do this on purpose?"

 _Of course I did, you idiot._ Dinah was glad that true telepaths didn't actually exist, and that Kaiser didn't have access to a cape with the ability to discern lies. She forced her voice to adopt a terrified, shaky tone in the face of the angry man. "D-did what, Mr. Kaiser? I d-don't... I don't know what you mean."

It clearly took the man a moment to compose himself. "I told you how important our work is, Dinah. I told you what we're trying to do, how we're going to improve the city for everyone. But I can't do that if I can't count on your help. You understand how important all of this is, don't you?"

Nodding sagely, Dinah answered, "Uh huh. I t-tried, Mr. Kaiser. Did something happen? Did I do something wrong? I didn't mean to, I swear. I really, really didn't. Please, please don't be mad at me."

After remaining silent for a handful of seconds, the man spoke clearly. "Dinah, look at me." When she did so, he went on. "I asked you a question earlier about those files that were being transferred here. When I asked you if the measures we were taking would keep them safe, did you tell me the truth?"

"I-it's a percentage, Mr. Kaiser," Dinah's voice was weak. "Ninety percent chance they'd be delivered safely if Faultline's crew faced the Undersiders. That's not a hundred, sir. I helped you get it as high as possible, but it wasn't a hundred. Ten percent chance is still a chance, you know."

Dinah was incapable of lying when it came to giving answers that her power had given her. That much she had learned right away. Whatever question she asked, something about her power ensured that she couldn't lie about the answer that she'd gotten. Which meant that the trick was in how she phrased things. She had told Kaiser that the odds of Faultline's Crew preventing the Undersiders from stealing his-all-important files were ninety percent. That was completely true. If Faultline's Crew had been alone against the Undersiders, the latter group would have been entirely unsuccessful. Tattletale's ego would have driven her to believe she could beat Faultline, and the Undersiders would have lost.

However, the specific question had been solely about Faultline's group facing the Undersiders. The odds of that particular match-up going Kaiser's way had been ninety percent, as Dinah had said. But Dinah had known that the odds of Faultline informing the Protectorate about what they were doing was in the high seventies. And when the question became 'what are the odds of the Undersiders getting away with those files if Faultline's group _and_ the heroes try to intervene, the answer was much more in their favor. Most likely, Dinah assumed, because the larger group forced Tattletale to focus on escape right from the start rather than her own personal rivalry with Faultline. With the smaller group of opponents, Tattletale thought she could win. When there were so many, her survival instinct won out.

Her face, of course, revealed none of these thoughts. She simply stared earnestly and fearfully at the man until he relented with a sigh. "Fine," Kaiser said quietly. "But we are retrieving those files."

"What's so important about that delivery anyway?" Rune cut in, arms folded while she stared at the man who had pretty much shoved her aside in his rush to reach Dinah while he was so angry.

Dinah saw the man glance sideways with an expression that made it clear he'd forgotten the other girl's presence briefly. He paused, looking first to Rune and then back to Dinah before answering in a low, tight voice. "Most of that delivery was innocent, simple records of transactions between Medhall and various doctors and hospitals around the country. Boring, dry information that wouldn't hurt anyone."

"But that's not what the Undersiders stole," Rune spoke knowingly.

"No, it wasn't." Kaiser's obvious agitation became apparent as he closed his hand tightly before opening it. This theft was really getting to him, practically making him come unhinged. It was really kind of funny, though Dinah was very careful to let none of her amusement show.

Still, he seemed reluctant to actually explain. So Dinah spoke up. "Mr. Kaiser, sir? I—I'm sorry I messed up. But um, the more information I have, the better my um, my power works. So if you tell me what we're looking for, it might help get the odds to be even better."

After another pause, Kaiser nodded. "Yes, well, as I said, most of that information was meaningless. But what they stole..." He sighed, clearly choosing his words carefully. "Almost every organization must sometimes pay tribute to one that is more powerful. The Empire is no exception to that rule."

"Wait, you're talking about Geselleschaft," Cassie blurted in sudden realization.

Pursing his lips, Kaiser glanced to her. "Yes. We pay our dues to the Geselleschaft by providing them with medical information, supplies, and treatment, among other things. The files that were stolen contain the full medical workup for the Geselleschaft leadership and VIP's. It is information that could be used, by certain parties, to identify and locate them. Do you know what will happen if the Geselleschaft leadership finds out that their personal medical records, information that could lead their enemies straight to their civilian identities, have been stolen?"

Rune whistled long and low. "Damn. They'd be pretty fucking pissed off."

"Indeed," Kaiser grunted the word before focusing on Dinah once more. "And that, my dear, is very dangerous. If those people become involved in this situation, there is little I could do to protect you. So when I say that we need to retrieve those files, it's for your own safety as well. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Dinah's head bobbed obediently. "I understand. I'll try to help, I promise. But I don't know what questions to ask. I—I... can we use Vanessa, please?"

"Of course, yes." Kaiser had control of himself again, and was clearly thinking ahead. "We'll have Vanessa brought in to help you ask more questions." He smiled humorlessly at the blonde girl beside him. "In fact, this may require your advice as well, Cassie."

"Me?" The girl raised an eyebrow, looking toward Dinah doubtfully before turning back to the man.

He nodded. "Yes. After all, you gained your powers just before escaping from prison, I believe?" When the girl grunted agreement, he continued. "Good, so you can be a part of the team that extracts the three captured Undersiders from PRT custody. Then you can bring them here so that we can have a little chat about who hired them to steal those files. Because this was not a spur of the moment thing, and there is no chance that those little thugs had enough information or clout to know what they were doing."

"You think someone's behind them?" Cassie asked curiously. "Who?"

"I do, and I have my suspicions," Kaiser gave a non-answer before looking at Dinah. "Right, tonight is going to be a long one, I'm afraid. Why don't you go ahead and take a nice long shower, huh?" He gestured toward the attached bathroom. "That should help you feel better before we get started. I'll have Vanessa come down with some ice cream. Then we'll decide how to do this little... 'rescue' mission. Okay?"

"Okay," Dinah echoed, picking herself up from the desk. She hesitated, fidgeting before asking, "I'm still gonna get to go home sometime, right? I'm really trying to give you the best answers."

"Of course you are," Kaiser lied to her face. "We'll fix the city and then you can go home, I promise."

Turning, Dinah walked past Cassie, giving the girl a long, silent stare before she stepped into the bathroom. Closing the door after her, she closed her eyes and asked her power what the odds that she was in any way being observed were.

Once the answer came back, she relaxed. Kaiser obviously didn't think it was worth monitoring her _**constantly**_ , when there was no possible escape from this room. Most of the cowed, childish fear left her expression and her posture straightened somewhat. She gazed at herself in the mirror briefly before allowing herself a very slight smile.

This was still incredibly dangerous. Most of the people who knew where she was would kill her without much hesitation. She was working on gaining allies here, but it would take time. She was trapped here in the basement of a literal Nazi Supervillain lair, and she was playing a very dangerous game of misinformation with their leader. A single misstep could kill her. And yet, even knowing that, she still couldn't prevent that tiny smile from escaping when she looked at herself. It was a private smile, one meant only for herself. Because only she knew the truth.

After all, what was the fun in manipulating one supervillain by making sure details of your power reached his ears, just so that he would abduct you before a different supervillain could (and in the process, bring you straight to a girl who could heal the headaches that your power caused), if you couldn't smile about it once in awhile?


	5. Arc 5: Some Assembly Required

_**Notes –** A Critic: Hiring Leet/Uber/Hax was Coil's doing. As for why they were willing, well, read on. ;) _

_HellKing666: More well-adjusted Amy on the way here. In writing, Nimue is a tinker whose 'focus' involves the fact that whatever she does needs to look like magic/magic trick in some way. Mockshow is the same as she was in canon. Basically, she can animate inanimate objects. She tends to use this to make them take on a rhino-like form and method of attack, such as restructuring a truck to have four legs that it runs on to ram into targets._

 _And no, Madison cannot learn anything from tinker tech. Her power will just stare at it and say, 'yep, it's a hunk of metal all right.'_

 _As for Dinah's 'lie condition', I'm honestly not ENTIRELY clear on if that's how it worked in canon, but I seem to remember that being said somewhere._

 _Anyway, here's this monster of an update. Please enjoy._

 **5-01 – Emma**

The sound of sirens grew almost deafeningly loud before, as it had twice already, fading into the distance. The police were out in force, searching for any sign of their prey.

Me, us, the Undersiders. We were their prey. Or what was left of us were anyway. All three of us. Three out of what had been six. Half of our group, half of the team that I had just joined, had been captured. Arrested, I reminded myself, not just captured. This wasn't some game. No one was going to yell olly olly oxen free and let those of us that were left come in and get some punch and cookies. The others had been arrested for committing a crime, the same crime they wanted to arrest me for now.

I'd helped Regent and then left to do the rest of my job. I'd seen Bitch fighting with that girl with the mechanical monsters. We'd _had_ the unconscious Grue. The last one particularly made me flinch. We'd had him, and then Sophia had taken him away. She'd come out of nowhere, cut the cords that were holding him safely on the back of Bitch's dog, and then both of them were gone. The dog had been trapped a moment later, and Tattletale and I had been flung free. We'd kept running rather than try to stay and fight off that many capes to get Grue back. Eventually we'd met up with Nimue.

Just Nimue. She was the only one other than Tattletale and myself to escape. They'd taken the other three. Even then we hadn't been out of the woods entirely. Without any of Bitch's dogs to help, we'd had to run together, evading the police patrols and a couple of patrolling capes that had been sent to try to round us up. Clearly the authorities were hoping that wiping an entire criminal gang out in a single move would convince the public that they had everything under control.

I had used my own power to guide us, freezing time and floating up to look around to make sure our path was clear. We'd evaded several attempts to trap us that way, until we'd finally made it to a small neighborhood of rundown stores, more than half of which were permanently closed.

The place we were in now had been a liquor store. When the coast on the street was clear, we'd run across the empty parking lot, and Nimue had picked the lock before letting us in. We'd closed the door after us, then sank down to hide on the dirty floor while the authorities continued searching the streets.

That had been about ten minutes ago, and none of us had said anything in the intervening time. We were too busy listening to the sirens and thinking about how fucked up everything had become.

Once the latest roar of sirens had faded, we continued to sit in silence. I didn't know about the others, but I was too afraid to move, worried that any noise at all would attract the attention of our pursuers.

Failed. We had failed. Worse, half of us had been captured. The first job that I had tried to pull with my new team, and we'd lost so badly that half of us were heading to prison at that very moment. Was it even possible to fail harder than that aside from all of us being taken in?

I had thought that I was ready, that I was prepared. Now this had happened. What was I supposed to do? Who was I supposed to be after my first attempt at this sort of thing had backfired so much?

Nimue was the first to finally speak, the silver half-mask with its amethyst-like eyes making it hard to work out her expression. "Well, that could've gone better." She paused. "Could've gone worse too."

I blinked over at her, mouth open behind my mask. "What do you mean it could've gone worse?" I sputtered in spite of myself. "Like if all of us got caught instead of just half of us?"

On the other side of me, Tattletale was nodding. "Exactly. That was a trap. The Wards _and_ Faultline's Crew? They were ready and waiting for us. And we still got out with what we came for." Her hand lifted the three folders she had selected demonstratively. "Believe me, they had two groups of capes ready and waiting for us. The fact that any of us got away, and did so _with_ what we came for, makes them come off looking a lot worse than we do. They'll spin it the other way, but we know the truth."

I shook my head, easing myself off the floor and standing to look out the dirty window to the empty street. "But Regent, Grue, and Bitch... they—we just ran off and left them! We abandoned them."

Nimue stood up then, cracking her neck to either side before glancing out the same window. "Babe, if we hadn't beat feet, all three of us would be in the same position they're in. Which is better, half of us get caught and the other half work on rescuing them, or we all get caught so we're completely fucked?"

Tattletale had pulled off her domino mask by that point as she stood up as well, joining us in looking out the window for a few seconds before she spoke. "We got the files that the boss wanted so badly. He'll be happy enough to give us some help if we want to try to break the others out."

"What do you mean, if?" I frowned, looking sidelong toward the blonde. "You can't just leave them."

It was Tyler who spoke, tugging her own mask off with a shake of her head. "Pretty sure the key word there was _we_ , not _if_ ," she said while turning the silver half-mask over in her hands.

Tattletale was already nodding. "You two just joined up. You weren't expecting any of this. Hell, Emma, you only got into this for that insurance thing. And now, well, it doesn't look like we're going to be doing that any time soon. So if you'd rather bail than go up against everything we're going to have to if we want to get the others back, I'd understand. And trust me, they would too."

She turned to face us, folders held tightly in one hand. "The boss owes us now. Just... trust me, he owes us more than you could understand. If either of you want to bail, I can convince him to give me some other help to rescue Brian, Rachel, and Alec. This doesn't have to be your problem."

For a few seconds, I thought about it. It shamed me that I did, but I had to consider what she said. I really _hadn't_ signed up for this sort of thing. I'd barely met the Undersiders the night before, and now three of them were in PRT custody. Who was I to try to go up against that kind of authority?

My earlier thoughts came back in force, my self-doubt regrouping in my mind, pushing me to accept Tattletale's offer to drop out. We had already failed once, no matter how those two tried to spin it. Three of us were captured, and it was mostly luck that the rest of us had escaped. Walking away now, leaving it to her and their mysterious boss, might be my last chance to avoid the same fate as the others.

My stomach rolled in disgust at myself even before the thought had finished. My fists clenched tightly and I stared, not out the window but at the floor. I felt the fear of what might happen if I let this go on, if I kept on with this and ended up getting caught like the others had. I felt the doubt, the self-recrimination, as I thought about how much easier it might be to just give up, to just surrender to the inevitable and walk away from all this before things got worse. What if this was my last chance to get out? What if what had happened today was simply a herald of worse things to come?

This had been my first real job with the Undersiders, and we'd pretty much been kicked into the dirt. Half of us were on their way to holding cells, and there was no way of knowing if the rest of us wouldn't join them soon if we didn't walk away from this. We were down. Was the right thing to do just to stay down, to give up on this stuff before I ended up in the same situation as the others? Should I take the offer to walk away? Should I stay down where I had been knocked before things got worse?

"No," I said aloud before quite realizing that I was speaking. The other two looked at me, and I continued after taking off my mask. "No, I'm not bailing. This was... hard. Harder than I thought. But I made my choice, Tattlet- Lisa. I chose to join you guys. Maybe I still don't really understand everything that means, but I'm pretty sure it definitely means you don't bail the second it gets hard."

Looking toward the girl, I met her gaze. "I'm in. Whatever this turns into, however hard it gets, I'm not-" My voice caught a little and I had to swallow. "I'm not abandoning you guys. That's not who I am—not who I want to be anymore. I wanted to change the person that I was. I'm pretty sure taking off now, letting you deal with this because it'd be easier for me, that's what old Emma would have done."

"You're sure about this?" Lisa asked quietly, watching my expression now that I had removed the mask.

I nodded without looking away from her gaze. "It's my choice. I'm staying. I'm here." I lifted my chin while staring at her, our eyes locked on one another. "I made my choice. I'm an Undersider, period."

Tyler spoke up after the brief silence that followed. "Well, I couldn't put it any better than that, so I'll just say ditto." Lisa and I looked her way, and the Korean girl shrugged. "I don't get a lot of chances to make friends before Mom makes us move again. Besides," she added with a wink, "if I leave, who's gonna enjoy the beautiful sight of you two walking away?"

"Walking away?" I blinked in confusion. "But I just said I'm not-" I stopped talking then as her meaning struck me. Seeing the look on my face, the other girl confirmed it by waggling her eyebrows suggestively, making a spin around gesture with her finger. "Oh god," I groaned, covering my face.

Lisa was also blushing a bit, but not nearly as much as I was. "Okay," she said after clearing her throat. "If you guys are sure about staying, then thank you. I-" She stopped talking then. I realized why when she tugged the small cell phone she had been using earlier off of the back of her belt. It was vibrating in her hand, and she glanced at the screen before holding up a finger to stop us. "It's the boss, hang on."

Flipping the phone open, Tattletale spoke clearly. "Yeah. We got it, but—yeah, all three. Wait, four? Oh... so does that mean—okay. Yeah, we'll get it to you as soon as we get out of here. What? Yeah, you have the location? Right. We'll wait here then."

Disconnecting the phone and putting it away, she looked up to the two of us. "The boss says that Uber got caught too. Apparently Faultline has some new badass cape no one's seen before. Powers are unknown, but she's some kind of Mover that can fight well enough to beat Uber in a brawl."

"That mean the other two wanna get their partner back?" Tyler asked, curiously.

Lisa nodded and looked at the folders in her hand. "They're on their way, apparently. The boss is sending a car with those two and a driver to pick these up for him." She glanced up. "He's also sending fresh clothes. The sizes won't be exact since, well, yeah. But at least they'll let us get out of here without attracting everyone's attention."

"How did Uber, Hax, and Leet end up helping us anyway?" I asked in confusion. "I didn't think this was their sort of thing."

"They're mostly into having fun, in a violent and sort of psychotic way," Lisa replied with a shrug. "Freedom, thumbing their nose at the PRT, that sort of thing. Especially since Hax signed on. She's got this big thing about rebelling against authority. Hates anyone trying to control her or tell her what to do. So yeah, beating the 'good guys' like this is right up her alley. Plus I _think_ she has a thing for Uber."

"Who could blame her?" Tyler pointed out. "Have you seen the guy? He is built. But then, she looks good too. I wonder if they'd ever..."

I tuned her out, flushing a little before turning to Tattletale. "What's in those folders that's so important? Do you know?"

Her head started to shake, but then she seemed to think better of it and stopped. "Yes," she said quietly. "But trust me, you don't want to. It's better that way."

I frowned. "No it's not. I said I'm here, that I'd stay. I'm in this, whatever it is. What did we just steal? I have the right to know, Tattletale. I have the right to know what Brian, Rachel, and Alec are headed to jail for."

Lisa flinched, but before she could answer me, the sound of a car pulling up outside caught our attention. Turning quickly to the window, we watched as the blue sedan parked nearby. The doors opened, and the costumed figures of Leet and Hax stepped out. They were accompanied by a nondescript man with a military buzz cut who wore simple jeans and a white tee-shirt. A large green dufflebag was slung over one of his shoulders, clearly containing the clothes that we were supposed to change into.

We put our masks back on before the three entered the store, and Lisa passed the three folders to the ordinary-if-athletic looking man. He tucked them under his arm, looked over the three of us over briefly before giving a nod as he dropped the dufflebag that he was carrying on the floor. Then he turned and walked out again, all without ever saying a word.

The car started up and pulled out a moment later, leaving the five of us costumed capes standing there looking at one another.

"Well," Leet, his own body gawky and clearly out of shape, muttered. "That was a fucking pain in the ass. You didn't say we were gonna have to deal with _**both**_ the Wards and Faultline, Tattletale." His voice was pitched into a bit of a whine.

"I didn't know," Lisa replied calmly. "Sorry Uber got caught too."

"Yeah, well, your boss says if we work together, we can get them all back," Leet said with a petulant tone. "If you guys aren't planning on running away again as soon as it gets tough."

"Shut up, Mike," Hax snarled, her anger clear. "You're the one who didn't make the emergency-teleport take all of us at the same time."

Leet visibly flinched. "Fuck, damn it, don't use my name!"

The simple cloth mask that the girl wore over her head left her eyes exposed so that I could see them roll. "Right, I'm sure 'Mike' tells them a hell of a lot. They'll be kicking down your door any second, dork. Besides, this secret identity shit is stupid anyway."

"Well, uhh, thanks," I spoke up hesitantly, unsure of what to say. "For helping us get our teammates back too."

She gave me a long look before shrugging. "Ain't doing it for you, Red. Uber keeps me and this prick from killing each other, so we need him." After a moment of visible consideration, she added, "Besides, my brother's a part of your little crew, so getting him out is kind of important too, I guess. Especially if I get to rub his face in the fact that I had to save him."

"Brother?" Lisa blinked beside me before coughing. "Wow, ahh, okay. Brian said he had a sister, but I didn't think she was-"

"Brian?" Hax tilted her head, then reached up to yank the mask off her head. A pretty, Caucasian girl with dark hair that had a red streak running through it stared at us.

"Who the hell is Brian?"

 **5-02 – Madison**

 _ **Tuesday, April 12th, 2011**_

"You guys do know that I could just absorb this blindfold if I really wanted to see where we were going, right?" It was the day after everything had happened with Trainwreck and Chariot outside of Medhall (plus that whole thing with the Wards and Faultline's mercenary group catching half of the Undersiders), and I was addressing Crystal, Eric, Victoria, and Amy while sitting in the back of the jeep that had been waiting out in front of the school as soon as I had gotten out for the day.

No sooner had I joined the group in the jeep than Victoria had insisted that I wear a blindfold. Not, apparently, to hide any real secrets, but because she really wanted our destination to be a surprise.

"Sure," the girl herself replied from my left where she was seated. She was really close and I couldn't seem to stop being distracted by the way her leg kept pressing against mine whenever Amy took a turn a bit too fast. "But if you did that, we'd notice. Then we'd know you were a cheating cheater. Plus I'd just have to put my version of a blindfold on you, and you couldn't absorb that one. So there."

From the front passenger side, so slightly ahead of me and to the right, Eric spoke up. "Er, Vicky, you do realize that she can't actually see you sticking your tongue out at her, right?"

"Meh," Vicky retorted dismissively. "She can imagine it just fine without seeing it."

For some reason, that drew a noise from Amy that sounded like a sharp snort. Her voice was just a tiny bit strained even after she coughed twice before speaking. "Yup, I'm sure she can imagine it _just fine._ "

"So where are we going and why do I have to be blindfolded?" I shifted a little, looking from where Amy was to the other side of me, where Crystal was seated. The other blonde had been quiet for most of the trip so far, though I had heard her tapping away on her phone for awhile now.

I felt her shift next to me before speaking, "Like we said before, you don't really need to be blindfolded. That's Vicky's thing. As for where we're going, remember how you were going to come over last night to talk about the new costume with your sizes and everything?"

"Sure," I said while nodding easily. We'd been planning on doing that, but after the situation outside of Medhall had happened, the adults had decided that I should just head home and wait until later. "So I guess that's what we're doing? But why would that be a secret? I mean, aren't we just going to-"

"Hey, shush it!" Victoria complained from my left side. "No spoiling, damn it. We'll be there soon. Surprises are fun, so quit trying to mess it up, the lot of you."

"Your weird need to be mysterious aside," Eric put in, "we do need to cover one important thing." I had the sense that the boy was looking at me then as he continued. "The person we're going to see knows about our identities, but not yours. We trust her, but it's your choice if you want to wear your mask or not when we get there."

"Eric's right," Crystal agreed. "Just because we trust her doesn't mean you have to. It might be a little awkward later on, but if you want to cover your face until you're ready, everyone will understand. It's totally your choice, Madison. Whatever you're comfortable with."

I hesitated, biting my lip thoughtfully before shaking my head. "If it's okay with you guys, it's okay with me."

"There, see? She's fine." Victoria squeezed my leg with her hand, sending confusingly pleasant tingles up and down it. "So let's just focus on distractions. How can we distract Madison so she'll stop trying to figure out exactly where we're going?"

"I can think of a few ideas," the dry voice of Amy replied from the driver's seat. But even though she said so, the other girl chose not to elaborate on any of those ideas. Instead, she turned up the radio.

At the moment, the deejays were arguing about the status of the various gangs in town and what territory they were still claiming after the last couple of tumultuous days.

"Right, so with yesterday's humiliating loss for the Undersiders, I think we can put a pin in that whole 'up and coming' status we had for them," one of the deejays said before making the whistling sound of something falling from a great height. "I'd say that drops them from Danger Rank three all the way back to one." This, of course, was followed by the sound of a toilet flushing. "Down you go."

"Hey, hey, don't be so quick with that," the co-host disagreed. "Sure, they lost a few of their people-"

"Half," the first guy shot back. "Half of their people. Let's not sugar coat this. Come on, without Hellhound they have no transport and no muscle, without Grue they've got no leader and nothing to cover their escapes, and without Regent they've got... ahh, crap, what **did** he contribute anyway?"

"Messes up people's aim, makes them drop stuff, that sort of thing." The co-host put in.

"Right, right, I'm sure that's ahhh, useful sometimes," the first deejay spoke with clear doubt. "Whatever, the point is, they're lost. They're gone. Game over, they might as well fold into one of the other groups. You think the Merchants might take on half of a broken team?"

"You're dismissing them too quick," his partner warned with obvious disagreement. "I'm telling you, given another month, they'll still be around. Probably be major players too."

"Oohhh, oh ho, is that right?" The first guy crowed. "Okay, it's a bet then. One month. If the Undersiders are still around, _and_ a major team, I will, ahhh... well let's say I'll wear anything you pick out to our next on-location appearance, how's that? And, you know, when a month passes and that whole team is still-" The toilet flushing sound effect came back. "-then you've gotta do the same."

There was a moment of hesitation before the second host agreed. "Sure, you got it."

"Yes!" The first man laughed. "All right, you heard it right here, people. One month from today, come on down to our next appearance. If the Undersiders are a still at team, and I mean a real major team that's actually a threat, you'll get to see me, Harvey 'Comet' Dyson, strutting my stuff in whatever my dear friend, Two-Tony, wants. And if they're not, well, let's just say my ex-wife left some of her lingerie in her rush to drag all my hopes and dreams with her on the way out."

"Why the hell are we listening to this guy?" Eric demanded, his disgust evident. "He's a chauvinistic prick. And pretty much every other kind of prick too. Turn it off, Ames. Or at least switch it."

"Victoria's the one who wanted a distraction," Amy replied. "And you've gotta admit, he is distracting." The car was slowing as she spoke, and a moment later it stopped. "Besides, we're already here."

"Sweet!" Victoria sounded happy. "Okay, almost there, Madison. Keep that blindfold on for just a little bit longer. Just trust me, this'll be great. Come on, I'll help you get inside."

She proceeded to take my hand, helping me out of the vehicle and guiding me across what felt like gravel. Before long the air changed and I thought we'd entered a building of some kind. Not that I was paying that much attention, honestly. My focus was on Vicky's hand. Her grip was warm, but soft, and I realized that I didn't really mind being blindfolded for the moment. Actually, it kind of felt-

"We're here!" Victoria interrupted my thoughts, and I realized belatedly that she wasn't talking to me when she added, "Can you send down the—yeah! Perfect."

I heard Eric mutter something that sounded like 'oh god' under his breath, followed by what sounded like everyone moving out of the way. Even Victoria released my hand and I felt her back off.

"Uh, guys?" I turned in a circle, frowning. "What's going on now? Where are you going?"

"Just hold on, just wait... wait..." Victoria's voice coached. "Hold on, almost ready. Wait..." She trailed off for a few seconds before giggling. "Okay, okay. You can take the blindfold off now."

Rather than untie the knot that she had made, I focused on bringing up my absorb field directly where the blindfold was. It vanished a second later, and I could immediately see again.

What I saw, other than the fact that we were standing in the middle of some kind of large, mostly empty garage, was... a purple stuffed gorilla as tall as I was. It was _waving_ at me.

The loud squeak of surprise that escaped me would have been more at home coming from a giant mouse. Which was convenient, I realized a moment later, considering a purple one of those was dancing to my left. There was also a green octopus with a top hat to my right, and behind me... yup, a hot pink koala wearing a fighter pilot costume from the second world war, complete with scarf. All four were my size, and all were waving and dancing.

Clearly, there was only one sane, logical, and totally mature thing to do in face of this. I squealed and threw myself at the pilot koala, tackling the thing with an enthusiastic hug that brought it to the ground. "Eeeeeee! Can I keep him, can I keep him, can I keep him?!"

"You could try," a polite, happy voice replied. "But I don't think it would work very well without me."

Turning while still holding onto the koala pilot, I saw that the voice belonged to a girl wearing some kind of Victorian-style costume. With the face-mask that the girl wore, she looked like one of those old porcelain dolls. Even her hair was done up in perfect golden curls.

"Hey, I know you!" Still hugging onto the pilot koala, I racked my brain. "Umm, ummm, perrrr... perrrr... Persian?" No, that wasn't right. Damn, what was her name?

Chuckling, the doll-like girl shook her head. "Close, I guess. I'm Parian." She gave a little curtsy. "Glad to meet you." This was followed by the koala leaning up to give me a brief nuzzle that made me giggle.

Right, Parian. She wasn't a hero or a villain, but an independent, a rogue. She used her power to make stuffed animals and stuff for store grand openings, festival announcements, and other stuff like that. She earned money with her power without violating the law, _and_ without stopping other crime.

"See?" Victoria announced proudly. "I told you guys she'd love it." Stepping in, she helped me back up to my feet while I kept hold of the koala so that it came up with me. "Aren't these things adorable?"

"They're amazing," I agreed before giving the koala one more hug. "But they don't work without you, huh?" I added a little sadly while looking back toward Parian.

"Aww," The doll-girl waved her hands, making the four big stuffed animals spin around a few times. "Tell you what, I'll give the koala some real stuffing if you like him so much. Then you can take him home and he won't deflate. He won't move on his own anymore, but you can still have him."

"What—really?" My eyes widened in surprise and I looked at the adorable toy for a second before launching myself into another hug. This one was directed toward Parian herself. "Thank you!"

Laughing, Parian returned the embrace after a moment. "Wow, you're a huggy one, aren't you?" After releasing me, she added, "Sure you're not jealous, Amy?"

Blinking at that, I looked over toward the girl in question. "Jealous?"

This time it was Crystal who stepped in, chuckling under her breath. "Don't worry about it, Madison. Parian isn't part of the team, but she is... really close to us, and knows everyone. It's..." She paused, looking over her shoulder.

Amy took over, stepping in to put an arm around the doll-dressed girl. "She's my girlfriend."

"Oh," I blinked, then blinked again as it settled. "Ohhhh, oh, right. Girlfriend." For some reason, I smiled a bit dumbly as a warm feeling passed through me at that announcement.

"Yup," Crystal spoke up then, reaching out to poke her sister. "Parian's the one that Amy was so busy texting yesterday while we were driving you over to our place to meet everyone."

"Ready, babe?" Amy asked the girl whose waist she had her arm wrapped around. "Since you know who she is, you really ought to let her know who you are. Besides," she teased, "I'd really hate for her to see us together out of costume and start thinking I was some kind of player or something."

Parian obliged by reaching up to take off the doll-like mask, and I was startled to see the perfect blonde curls go with it. Then I found myself staring into the darker skin of an exotically pretty girl who was clearly of Middle Eastern descent. Her black hair was tied back into a tight braid that let it hide beneath the blonde wig and the rest of her costume.

"Oh—Oh!" I gasped, pointing in spite of myself. "That's—oh that's really smart, no one's ever gonna guess who **you** are, huh?"

She coughed once, a little uncomfortably. "Not until I unmask anyway. That's the plan, to make the public think about how they treat people when they think they're one particular race. I hope once enough people know me in costume and I unmask, it might get people talking."

"Wow," I hesitantly smiled. "That's umm, that's pretty smart. But are you really gonna unmask? That sounds kind of, you know, dangerous. For you and um, for people you know." I tried to phrase it tactfully, but wasn't sure it came out right.

"We're still discussing it," Amy put in, squeezing her arm around the other girl firmly. "If she really wants to, we'll find a way to make it work."

They shared a brief look that simultaneously made me feel happy, and like I shouldn't be there. Then Victoria spoke up. "Okay, lovebirds. Don't forget the reason we came over today."

"Wait," I frowned uncertainly. "Why _did_ we come over here today, anyway? I mean, it's nice to meet you... Parian, but-"

"Sabah," she interrupted with a smile while extracting one of her hands from Amy's grasp, offering it to me. "My name is Sabah."

"Sabah," I smiled in spite of myself. "That's a pretty name. Wait, what does Parian mean, anyway?"

It was Amy who answered, holding onto Sabah's remaining free hand with both of hers. "It's a type of doll from Germany. They're kind of like china dolls. I'll show you a picture when we get done here."

"When we get done doing..." I trailed off, looking back and forth from the others expectantly.

Chuckling, Sabah leaned in to give Amy a brief kiss that seemed to go longer than either of them expected. Both were a bit out of breath by the time their attention returned to me. The girl reached out to take my hand then. "I'm a fashion designer. Or I'm trying to be. And you wouldn't believe how fast I am at sewing." She winked then. "So I've been helping the Brigade with their costumes. They thought I could put something together for you. If you'd like that."

"What—you—really?" I blinked, surprised by that in spite of myself. "I wasn't expecting anything so fast, but—but sure! I mean, if you're not too busy."

Tugging me by the hand, Sabah shook her head dismissively. "Don't worry, I can make time. Now come on, let's see what we can put together for you. Amy, you're my helper today."

I looked over my shoulder as the two of them tugged me away from the others. Victoria raised a hand to wave. "Just follow her lead, Madison! Trust Sabah, she'll get you out of that ratty old costume and into something awesome. Then you'll really feel like part of the team."

So that was the surprise. I was being fitted for a new costume, a _real_ costume, by Amy's girlfriend. Amy's girlfriend. The thought made me smile as I glanced over my shoulder at the others one last time. Victoria, Eric, and Crystal had plopped down into some chairs that Victoria had clearly created, and were talking animatedly about something.

I was getting a costume that would match theirs, that would make me look like a real part of that team.

God, I hoped they weren't making a mistake. Was I really ready for this? Was I ready to be an _official_ part of the Brockton Bay Brigade? Or would I still feel like I was just a little girl playing dress-up?

As if privy to my thoughts and musings, as we went through the door at the side of the garage and emerged into what looked like a veritable hoard of various fabrics, thread, and other important bits of clothing design, Sabah asked, "Ready for this?" She swept a hand out to indicate the piles upon piles of stuff. "It might take awhile to get it just right, even with my power."

Thinking about my own worries, I took a breath before giving a firm nod. I answered both her and myself at the same time. "You're right, it might take awhile. But I'm ready."

"Great," Sabah gave me a bright smile. "All right then, let's make you look like a hero..."

 **5-03 – Taylor**

 _ **Wednesday, April 13th, 2011**_

I stood on the outstretched palm of an crystal giant, gazing at the obsidian field that lay thirty feet below me. The dark expanse was dotted equally by tall ivory pillars and statues similar to the one that I stood upon. Their prism-like structures played with and reflected the same light that the atramentous ground hungrily swallowed into its insatiable depths. The statues, all set in various poses, were positioned such that wherever the sun moved through whatever time of day it was, its light was cast through each in a way that created a cascade of rainbows upon the gleaming white pillars that were each statue's neighbor. A sea of color floating above sable wastes.

"It's... beautiful, Elle." I said softly, afraid of letting my voice shatter the image before me. Yet this was no image, no false illusion. This was the reality that Elle had created for herself. It was a reality that only she had truly seen in its entirety, a place only for her. Until now. Until she brought me to see it.

Beside me, the other girl shifted. "This is a good place. Not the other place. Field of Hope, not Broken Things." There was something in her voice, but I couldn't place it. Sadness, maybe? I wished I knew what a healthy, normal person would do then. Ask her if she wanted to talk about that sadness in her voice? Ignore it? Try to distract her by talking about incredible display? What was the right thing to do?

Finally, I settled on putting my hand on her shoulder. It felt awkward, strange to me. But some distant, long-buried part of me remembered a time when a hand upon my shoulder wouldn't have made me flinch. There had been a time, as strange and wrong as it felt now, when I had eagerly accepted physical contact. I had liked to hug my best friend, and I even enjoyed roughhousing. We would attack each other on the floor of her living room and I would eventually find myself pinned underneath a half dozen pillows while Emma lay on top of them, calling for me to surrender. I had lain beneath the bedding, with her weight atop me, and I had not been afraid. There had been nothing to fear, because Emma was my best friend. I trusted her completely. I knew she'd never actually hurt me. We were linked and we were going to be friends forever, connected throughout our lives.

Aside from my mother and father, I had never trusted anyone the way that I had trusted Emma Barnes. In some ways, my trust with her had been even stronger than with my parents. I had to trust them, I had been born to them and having faith in them was instinct. My bond with Emma had been more than that. It had been born of our experiences with one another, the way we had grown up. We had chosen to be friends, and our years together had forged that bond into one that had felt unbreakable.

Now it was gone. I felt as though I had no trust left to give. I had poured all of it into my bond with Emma, had put the whole of my faith in it. And that bond, that link of trust and belief, had been shattered. Not by an outsider, or by circumstance, but by conscious choice. The person I had chosen to believe in, the girl I had trusted with _everything_ I was, had betrayed me. Emma had willingly and purposefully destroyed the trust that I put in her. She had taken all that I was, all I had been, and shattered it for the sake of a few laughs and a bit of popularity.

Saying that I had trust issues would be an understatement. I didn't know _how_ to fully trust someone. I didn't know if it would ever be possible. Yet being here, standing in this place that belonged only to Elle, I felt the _desire_ to trust. I knew that I wanted to help her, that I wanted to say the right things. But I had no idea what those right things were, or how to go about them. And that tiny voice in the back of my head wouldn't stop whispering Emma's name as a reminder that friends never lasted.

As if to remind me that she wasn't my former friend, Elle turned her gaze to me, eyes bright with a sense of pure _life_ and excitement. Sharing these things with me, guiding me through the worlds that she had created, seemed to be doing as much good for her as it was for me. She was clearly enjoying the simple act of showing me what had, up until then, been seen only by herself, or in small parts when she brought portions of these other-worlds into the regular one. Her friends and teammates had seen small pieces of the puzzle, but never the whole thing. Until now.

"No bad place here," she informed me with a serious tone. "That isn't allowed. The dark and bad is locked up." Pointing below at the raven-black stone ground, she added, "Trapped."

Squinting below, I saw what she meant. When I looked close enough, it became clear that what I had thought were simple obsidian stones making up the ground was far more than that. The darkness swirled like clouds, and after staring long enough, I caught a glimpse of clear crystal where one of the black clouds drifted slightly before more came in to fill it up once more.

The ground below us wasn't made of black rocks. It was made of crystal just like the statues laid out before us. There was was some kind of black cloud within or beneath that crystal ground, trapped there and unable to reach the open air where we were, and where the light made rainbows.

"Bad memories." Elle's voice was soft, tentative. "Can't find us here. Not allowed in."

Biting my lip, I looked back at her and hesitated before guessing, "You could tell that I was having some bad memories?" When she nodded, I sighed. "Sorry, I'll try to remember the rules from now on, I promise. No dwelling on bad thoughts in this place. Good thoughts only area, huh?"

"Good thoughts only," she agreed before looking off into the distance. "They want you."

I looked as well, staring at one of the pure white pillars. Playing across the surface, as if cast by a movie projector, I could see Faultline's face clearly saying something. Melanie, I reminded myself. Out of costume, Faultline's name was Melanie Fitts. It was hard to remember, because the name Faultline just _fit_ the woman more than a name like Melanie. I'd tried out the idea of Ms. Fitts, but that sounded even worse in my head. No, she was just... Faultline.

"Guess she wants to talk to me," I said quietly before looking back to Elle. "Can I see more of your worlds later?" She had been guiding me through them for much of the past couple of days. Yet every time I thought I'd seen the last remarkable view, or the final instance of creative genius, we rounded a corner and found something new to astonish me.

At the moment, I couldn't imagine a worse crime than the fact that no one else would **truly** know or recognize the full extent of the artistic mind hidden within the girl who spent her days staring at walls and talking to things that only she could see. Elle's power may have had crippled her ability to easily express herself in the regular world, her consciousness split between two places. But here, in these worlds hidden away from the sight of anyone, that wasn't a problem. Here, she could create anything.

"Yes, Taylor," Elle's voice was still a bit shy as she answered. "I have many more things that I would like to show you." That hesitant, shy little smile came back. "If you are still interested."

"Definitely," I promised her. Then I stood there awkwardly for a moment. Days ago, when I had first found myself within Elle's world, I had hugged her without reservation or thought. Now, that nagging doubt had had time to seep into the back of my head. I took a moment to forcefully shove it down, and made a point of embracing the other girl. _There, see?_ I thought to myself. I can do this. I can have a friend, even hug her, without tensing up the whole time we were touching.

Releasing the other girl after a moment, I gestured. "You ready to toss me back?" At her nod, I took a breath and then took two steps forward before leaping off the edge of the statue's outstretched palm. A loud, wild shriek tore itself up from my mouth as I plummeted toward the hard ground below.

An instant before I would have hit the ground, I was abruptly staring into my own eyes. My body was seated in the back of one of two SUV's that we had been driving across the country in for the past couple of days. I seemed to have landed perfectly in the seat, so clearly I was going to have to congratulate Elle on her aim. We had been practicing taking my body in and out of her worlds, and it was clearly paying off. She was pretty much able to put me out anywhere that her power could affect.

A familiar orange hand waved in front of my body's eyes then, showing me whose head I was currently inhabiting, before Newter's voice called., "Yo, Taylor! Guess you're back from Wonderland, huh?"

My vision jumped a second later, switching to the panoptic view so that I could see everywhere around us. Both SUV's were stopped in what turned out to be the parking lot of a combination gas station and car repair shop just off the freeway in the middle of what I was fairly sure was the Utah desert.

"We are where?" Elle, seated beside me, turned a bit to look at Newter. "Faultline wanted Taylor?"

"Right, yeah. We're uhh, at the place we were heading for today." Newter glanced back and forth between the two of us for a moment before going on. "Most of the others went on in to see if, ahh, your—err, that is, Taylor's surprise was ready yet."

That caught my attention. Faultline had made it clear that while we were driving to Las Vegas on some kind of business that she wasn't ready to talk about yet, we were _also_ going for two other reasons. The first was that she thought everyone could use a break, and Vegas was a good place for that. The second reason, however, was that she had some kind of _surprise_ being prepared for me that was on the way.

I'd thought that it would be hard for my dad to hear that I was going out of town, but he had been surprisingly okay with the idea. Oh sure, he'd sounded worried about me and he'd made me promise to listen to Faultline and all that. But he had seemed kind of glad that I was getting out of town for awhile.

I'd also, through Elle, asked Faultline if she was going to tell the Protectorate about what I'd discovered concerning the various Undersiders. But Faultline had said that she would keep that information in reserve, just in case she needed to trade it for something else later on. She'd also added that there was no reason to let the Protectorate think that we were at their beck and call now. According to her, it was better to feed them morsels of help here and there. Enough that they didn't have any reason to come after her team when they—we did something that annoyed the officials in another state, but not enough that they thought we were theirs to order around whenever they felt like it.

In any case, I hadn't realized that we were so close to this 'surprise' that Faultline had for me. Here, though? Who could Faultline possibly know in this little truck stop in the middle of nowhere?

"Aha!" Newter pointed at my body triumphantly. "I swear I saw your eyes widen just a little bit. You were surprised, I surprised you. Which means you _don't_ know what your real surprise is, since you were surprised just now and you wouldn't have been surprised if you had snuck your mind inside one of us while we were talking about-"

"For fuck's sake, dude, just get her in the wheelchair and get her inside." The blunt voice belonged to, of course, Mockshow. The fourteen-year-old girl entered my vision area a moment later, shaking her head dismissively. "Like the sound of your own voice much? Fuck man, by the time you finish talking, the rest of us'll be shooting craps and drinking some James Bond shaken not stirred shit."

"Somehow I doubt Faultline is gonna let either of us anywhere near the casino floors," Newter pointed out while carefully tugging my wheelchair out from beneath the seat. He set it up with the younger girl's help, and then set to work guiding me down into it.

"Who said anything about casino floors?" Mockshow replied airily. "There's all kinds of action in Vegas, not just the boring old ID required kind." She poked my shoulder then before stepping around in front of my body. I wasn't sure why she bothered, since where my eyes were had nothing to do with what I could see. Habit, I guessed. "Hey, you wanna bounce out and see the Vegas streets while Faultline's doing her business thing, right? You, me, Ems, Newts, and Elle, the five of us could make _mad_ bank, yo. We could clean **up** , clean **out** , clean **every which way.** " Her last words were punctuated by a fist pump. "Especially once you get all set up with—ahhh..." Trailing off, she pointed at my body with both hands. "Almost got me there, huh? Almost got me to tell you what the surprise was. That strong, silent type of questioning is pretty damn effective."

Once my body was secure in the wheelchair, the three of them walked with me across the lot. We were heading not for the gas station, but toward the car repair shop that was set a short distance away.

Before I could spend too much time wondering once again what kind of surprise had to do with a place like this, the four of us passed through one of the open rolling doors and into the surprisingly clean garage. The place was obviously meticulously taken care of, with perfectly scrubbed floors and walls, while every tool chest was neatly labeled. It reminded me more of the hospital that I had spent so much time in than what I had imagined an old car repair shop in the middle of nowhere would look like.

Faultline- Melanie, I reminded myself yet again- was standing in the corner next to Emily and Gregor. The three of them were talking to a figure that was just out of range of my vision from where Newter had stopped pushing the wheelchair.

As we entered, Faul—Melanie turned our way. Even without her mask, she still looked capable and professional. "Oh good, you're back. Is everything all right?"

Mumbling something about being with the blue, Elle wandered away, her attention clearly focused on something that only she could see. I had to forcefully remind myself not to focus on her too much. It was so easy, and so _rewarding_ to throw myself into her mind, to let myself be brought into her world, that not doing so required physical effort. I had to focus now, and pay attention.

"This is her?" The voice came from a man who chose that moment to finally step within range of my vision, and I had my first look at the person that Faultline had brought us out of our way to meet.

He was a small man that was clearly in his late twenties or early thirties. His face was cleanly shaven, and his long black hair had been fashioned into a ponytail. He wore dark green jogging pants and a tight white shirt that showed off a pretty decent physique for his smaller size. He wasn't built like a body builder or anything, but he definitely wasn't weak either. The man was in shape.

Strangely, I realized a moment later, his ponytail was held in place by a bright pink ribbon with little white ponies on it. That confused me for long enough for the man to cross the distance between us. He stood there, gazing down at my body. "Hey there. Name's Tyson, though I suspect I'm supposed to tell you to call me Verduyn. Do you have a name yet?"

"No," Gregor answered for me, stepping that way. "There are... many options. She is having trouble settling on one that works. For now, use the name Victory. It is... descriptive of her ability."

Newter spoke from behind the wheelchair. "Still say she should take the name Nike."

"The shoe company?" Mockshow squinted. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"No, not the shoe company." Newter shook his head. "You know, Greek goddess _**of**_ Victory?"

Mockshow shrugged, clearly unconvinced. "I still think the real Nike would sue us or something."

"Whatever name you choose," Verduyn pressed on. "I only wish to know that you will take care of my work, and that you won't use it to hurt any innocent people. I need your word on that."

Faultline had joined us by that point, and spoke up for my benefit. "Verduyn is a tinker. He hired us for a job a couple months ago, and now we've hired him in exchange."

"You make it sound so informal." Verduyn shook his head. "Don't let her fool you. My little girl, my Alicia, some nasty piece of work kidnapped her. They wanted me to work for them, build my things just for them, or they'd hurt my girl. These people put a stop to it, and brought my Alicia back."

He swallowed then, hard. "I owe them more than I'll ever repay. I can't ever charge for any work."

"You will charge," Faultline insisted firmly. "You will charge us full price for this and for any repair work." To me, she added, "I'll pay for it now, but we'll take a percentage out of your cuts until it's paid for. We all earn our way here, and we don't run up debts."

Verduyn protested that they'd saved his daughter so he still didn't want to charge them at all, but Faultline was insistent. Meanwhile, I spent the whole time wondering what the hell they were talking about. A tinker? What had Faultline asked a tinker to build for me?

Finally, they settled on three quarters of what would be 'normal price' for the man's work for today's purchase of... whatever the hell it was, and half off upkeep costs.

Once that was settled, the man crossed back to what my vision was now wide enough to see was the desk where he had been seated before. Crouching down to reach under the desk, he came out with three foot wide, six foot long nearly flat metal box. It looked like a very large briefcase.

Carrying it over to where my body was, Verduyn laid it down in front of me before undoing the latch. Then he lifted the lid to show what was inside.

It was a suit. Specifically, a costume sort of suit. The thing consisted of a single piece that looked skintight, like the sort of thing scuba divers wore. There were even attached gloves and boots to the thing.

"It's just black for now," Verduyn was saying. "Didn't have time to customize it much, but you can do that fairly easily. I'll teach you before you leave here. Right now, I expect you want to try it out, so there's a changing room right over there you can use." He pointed to a doorway in the corner.

I still didn't know what was going on, but Emily and Faultline started to push my chair that way, while Elle gradually followed the second she noticed that we were leaving.

Over the next few minutes, my clothes were exchanged for the weird, skintight jumpsuit that the man had provided. My hands fit neatly into the gloves, and when it was zipped up, I could tell that it had been perfectly tailored to my size. I wondered if Dad had had a part in that.

Once I was in the suit, I was wheeled back out to where the others were. Emily kept squeezing my shoulder and saying just to wait until I found out what this was.

Verduyn came back over once more and crouched beside the chair. I could distantly feel him doing something behind my back, his fingers pressing against my neck briefly while he sought out something in the back of the suit. "Okay, this is going to hurt like a son of a bitch for a second. But I promise it's only for a second, and it'll get better every time you activate it. The suit just has to sync with your brain."

Wait, sync with my what? What were they- I had time to wonder that much before agony exploded in my head. It felt like every headache I'd ever experienced all rolled together and multiplied by a billion. My body, every nerve ending was on fire.

For a long moment afterward, my body did nothing but crouch on my hands and knees, panting hard.

Wait... It took me a moment to realize what I was seeing from my wide-angle view. My body... was on the floor. I was holding myself up on my hands and knees, and there wasn't a fight going on.

Slowly, I tried to tell my body to lift my head. It did so. My head lifted. My head... lifted.

Faultline was talking, explaining. "Verduyn specializes in prosthetics and armored suits."

I was still reeling while the man himself took over. "The suit is tied into your brain now, locked in at base of your neck. It reads the signals that you send your body and copies them to the suit's control system. The suit reads what you want to do and moves itself, and that moves you. Try standing up."

It took some doing, and I was still awkward about it even after managing to do so, but I stood. I _**stood up**_. My body was standing, and I was even able to keep my head lifted and pointed the right way thanks to the material around my neck that controlled where my head was positioned.

I was standing. I... wasn't in the middle of a fight. I wasn't standing with Elle in her private world. I was just... _standing._ Yes, it wasn't quite perfect. My vision was still detached from my body (actually in that moment I was seeing this through Emily's gaze), and I couldn't speak. My movements weren't perfect, and there was a sort of stiffness to them. But I was there, I was standing. I was standing because I told my body to stand, and it _did what I told it to._ Yes, only because of the suit that I was wearing, but **I was still standing!**

"Okay," Verduyn was saying. "We need to run through a few tests and safety features."

"He's right, so pay attention." Faultline ordered. "We need to know that you know how to take care of-"

She said something else, her voice continuing. But I wasn't listening. There was only one solitary thing on my mind, one thing that I ordered my body, through the suit, to do. And it did. My body followed my instructions, cutting Faultline off in mid-sentence.

The only two times that I had been able to move aside from when I was in Elle's alternate-worlds had been in the middle of combat. As soon as those fights had been over, I'd either passed out entirely or just fallen into a heap.

This time was different, however. This time there had been nothing stop me from stepping to the woman who had brought me out of that hospital, who had given me a chance, who had shown me that there was more to my new life than lying helpless in bed. And while I still couldn't verbally thank her, as if mere words would have been enough anyway, this allowed me to do one other thing in a futile attempt to show my gratitude.

In spite of her loud protests, I hugged Faultline as tightly as I could. And I didn't let go for a long time. Not even when she swore she would take twice what she had been planning to off of my share of any payments we received in order to pay for the suit.

Some things were just worth paying more for.

 **5-04 – Madison**

 _ **Thursday, April 14th, 2011**_

"I still feel weird wearing this," I muttered aloud while laying on my stomach on the roof of a three story building. In demonstration, I lifted my white-clad arm and waved it back and forth a little.

It had been two days since Sabah had created my new official costume, and this was my first time wearing it out in public, where people other than my new teammates would be able to see me.

At least it was already dark, and the people that we were likely to see at this point weren't the type that I really needed to worry about getting fashion advice from. Instead, they'd just shoot me in the face.

On my right side, also laying on her stomach, Fleur shook her head. "You look good, Archive." Her head turned slightly toward me so that I could see her black visor. "Trust us, Parian did a fantastic job."

Manpower, whose prone body was practically twice as long as mine, spoke up from my left side. His voice was a deep rumble in spite of the fact that he was whispering. "Yup, the costume looks great."

Flushing pink, I shook my head. "I know it does. It looks fantastic. But I feel like umm, like a little kid wearing some uniform I just found lying around. It's..." I flinched, feeling ungrateful. "Sorry, I didn't-"

"It's okay," Fleur nudged me in the side. "We know what you mean. It takes time to start feeling like you actually belong out here. But you'll do fine. Just keep your head up and stay focused."

Biting my lip, I nodded and returned my gaze to the tall fence that surrounded the large junkyard that we had been watching for the past hour or so. In the distance, I could see lights within a couple of buildings in the center of the junkyard. A single figure pacing on the roof was revealed by the glow of the cigarette that he was smoking, while the outline of another could be seen through one window. The second man was seated on the windowsill, occasionally taking a pull from the beer in his hand.

Two men in view, but I knew there were more than that. After all, according to the information that Brandish and Flashbang had gotten out of the dealer they'd cracked down on the night before, this was supposed to be one of the main drug caches for the local gang of lowlifes known as the Merchants.

The Merchants were, for lack of a better word, losers. Mostly made up of drug pushers, thugs that weren't good enough for any of the other major gangs, and a handful of parahumans that held the whole group together and prevented them from immediately being swept up by the authorities.

Finding out where one of their major supply centers happened to be located, assuming this paid off, was a big boon. If this worked the way it was supposed to, we would nail several of the Merchants before they knew what was happening, and take out a big chunk of their drug supply at the same time.

That was why we were waiting here, hiding on the roof while watching the junkyard rather than swooping down there to grab everything right away. We had to wait to make sure that any of the Merchants, parahuman or ordinary, who were planning on being here had already arrived. Otherwise, as Fleur had explained to me, there was a chance that we might end up caught between the gang members inside and any reinforcements that came while we were trying to corral those ones. That could obviously be a disaster, especially with any capes that were involved.

Thus we laid in wait, uncomfortable as it was. The rest of the Brigade were just as hidden as we were, spread around the rather large perimeter of the junkyard in order to cover as many sides as possible.

Once again, my mind drifted toward the thought of the costume that I was wearing. At its base it was, of course, a white jumpsuit sort of thing similar to what the rest of the Brigade wore that fit me perfectly. Like the rest of the team, I had been given my own color to offset the white. In my case, it was cyan. That was the color of the identity concealing visor that I wore over the top half of my face. The visor itself, thankfully, seemed clear from one side so I wasn't seeing absolutely everything through a blueish tint the whole time. The visors the rest of the Brigade wore were the same way.

Parian had also used the cyan color when incorporating the Kenaz rune from my original costume as the symbol on the left chest of this one. Additionally, she had added the same color in a gradient to both arms. It started very faint near my shoulders, which were completely white. Then as the arms went on, the light blueish color grew gradually stronger until it reached my gloves, which were completely cyan. A similar effect had been done to the lower half of the costume, starting from about mid-thigh and reaching down to my light blue boots. It was beautiful, and I really did feel like I didn't deserve it.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone in my pocket buzzed once. It wasn't much, but I still jumped and gave a slight yelp as if someone had smacked me. To one side, I heard Manpower chuckle softly, while Fleur just smiled. "Don't worry, eventually you'll stop being so nervous." Nodding toward the phone that I had tugged out of my pocket by then, she asked, "Anything important?"

I was squinting at the screen. "No, it's just a umm, an old friend." An old former friend, I wanted to say. Why was Emma asking me if my brother still worked at that construction company he'd been with since he started college? I didn't think she even remembered Trevor's name most of the time.

"Might wanna put it away," Manpower advised. "I'm pretty sure those incoming lights out there are what we've been waiting for." He was nodding toward several pairs of incoming headlights.

Quickly, I typed out a message telling Emma that I thought so, before starting to put the phone away. Then I thought better and absorbed it instead. Hell, the only reason I hadn't done that to begin with was just in case one of my parents tried to contact me while we were camped out here for hours. But now that we were about to get into the thick of things, it was too much of a distraction. I'd just have to remember to check on it afterward. Whatever Emma wanted (and why was she contacting me out of the blue to ask something weird like that?) could wait until later. This was more important.

By the time I'd absorbed the phone, the headlights had grown close enough for me to realize that it wasn't three separate vehicles at all, but one single monstrosity.

The thing, whatever it was called now, had obviously begun its life as several different vehicles. The base of it was a semi-truck with an attached trailer. However, the top of the cab was flat, and a _second_ cab had been attached there. This one was set slightly further back so that its front end where the headlights were was flush with the start of the windshield of the lower cab.

The huge, metal blade of a heavy bulldozer was also attached to the front of the lower cab, and the sides of the whole vehicle, from the front end all the way to the rear of the trailer was covered in thick metal armor. The wheels had been replaced by tank tracks, and there were ball-like bulges sticking out of either side of the trailer at the front and back, two on each side. Most of each ball was solid metal, with a strip around the middle that was clear. They were just large enough for the person that could barely be made out sitting inside of each. After another second, I noticed the twin gun barrels that stuck out of each of those metal balls. They were manned turrets that were clearly able to swivel and move to point in almost any direction. Each had its own light to illuminate where they were pointing.

"Holy crap," I breathed at the sight of the thing as it approached and passed directly beneath us. Then I blurted unthinkingly, "That's like the most awesome freaking truck I've ever seen!"

After blinking from one side to the other and finding both Manpower and Fleur looking at me, I amended with a blush. "Err, I mean, bad. Very bad. Horrible, evil machine. Grr."

Snickering, Fleur shook her head and nudged me again. "Nah, it does look pretty cool. Dangerous though, so be careful. Squealer may be part of a gang of losers, but that doesn't mean any of them aren't dangerous. They've got power, and if they used it right they could be a major force."

"Lucky for us, they mostly use it in stupid ways," Manpower added from the other side. Then he touched his own visor and spoke again. "Looks like this party's about to get started. We good to go?" I heard his voice both from beside me and through the earbuds that were attached to the visor that I wore. The same words would be sent through everyone else's as well.

Lady Photon replied a moment later from wherever she, Laserdream, and Brandish had set up. "Looks like it. Everyone sound off, let us know you're ready."

One by one down the line, everyone chimed in to say that they were ready. Thankfully, I even managed to get through my own part without tripping over my words or squeaking too much. I was almost absurdly proud of that fact, since it almost made me feel like a real part of the team.

Lady Photon continued once everyone confirmed that they were ready. "Okay, we hit them hard and fast from every front, as discussed. Laserdream and I will fly in to hit the shack in the middle first, where we'll drop Brandish. Flashbang and Lightstar, the group playing poker by the east gate are yours. Wait until you see the attack at the shack start, then hit them from the other side when they start to react to it. Seraph, you have the the guys at the north gate. Keep your eyes open, there's more of them in that small guard shack watching basketball. Not sure how many."

Once that much was acknowledged by everyone involved, she continued. "Panacea and Shielder, there's a smaller gate on the west side, just large enough for a single person to get through. You two cover that end just in case anyone slips through. We want this to be nice and clean. No one escapes."

Finally, she got to us. "Manpower, Fleur, and Archive, Squealer's truck is parked right in front of your gate at the south. That means it's your job to take it down and keep it from interfering. We can't have that thing on our backs the whole fight. Are you guys up for that?"

I knew what she was actually asking, and this time it was my turn to touch my visor before responding, "I'm up for it." My voice was surprisingly calm, considering the circumstances. After a second, I added, "But if you want, I'll keep an eye on Manpower and make sure he doesn't get too nervous."

I heard the man snicker next to me, though Brandish's voice didn't sound that amused as she chose to put in sharply, "Stay focused, Archive. This isn't a game."

Flinching, I started to lift my hand to apologize, but Fleur caught my arm. When I looked that way, she shook her head, speaking quietly, "Don't worry about it. Brandish can just be a bit... intense sometimes. She forgets that other people deal with this stuff in different ways. You just do what you need to."

Lady Photon was already talking. "We're thirty seconds out, everyone be ready."

Squinting up into the sky, I could barely make out three figures flying in from the west. Well, two of them were flying and carrying the third between them. Lady Photon, Laserdream, and Brandish.

Manpower lifted himself up to his knees beside me, watching the figures in the sky for another moment as they drew closer to their target. On the other side, Fleur rose to a crouch as well, so I did the same.

The man on the roof of the center shack had just started to look up when a laser shot down out of the sky, striking him in the chest. He was knocked down, and a second later another couple of lasers lanced out to hit other people. In the midst of this, I could see Brandish drop onto the roof next to where the man had fallen. A glowing energy weapon blazed to life in her hands, and she used it to cut straight down into the building proper, where I made out flashes of her movements through the windows.

"That's our cue," Manpower announced. Rising, he offered an arm to both me and Fleur. The two of us were easily pulled up to the massive man's chest, and I could feel my hair stand up a bit in reaction to the electromagnetic field that the man was manipulating to serve as his 'super strength.'

"Hold on," he advised before leaping off the roof of the building. In spite of myself, I yelped as we plummeted to the ground. He landed easily though, right in front of the closed gate before releasing us.

Stumbling forward away from the man to give him room, I looked through the metal gate to see the back of Squealer's ridiculously huge and armored truck. The men who had been getting out of the vehicle seconds earlier were now scrambling to get back inside in reaction to the attack.

One of the men, a young black guy in ratty army clothes, was running for the nearest turret, the rear left one. As soon as I saw what he was doing, I reminded myself that I wasn't a bystander and started to sprint that way. The gate didn't slow me at all, since all I had to do was briefly activate my field and keep going. The metal pieces that I passed through were absorbed, leaving a me-sized hole behind.

"Druggy loser freak says what!" I called to the man just as he had one hand on the bottom of the bubble, clearly trying to open the hatch that would let him climb up into the turret.

At the sound of my voice, the man jerked around reflexively, blurting, "What?"

I grinned in spite of myself. "Jeeze dude, I know fifth graders that wouldn't work on." Before he could retaliate, I added, "You don't seem that smart." On the heels of my words, I extended an arm. "Maybe you should try hitting the books."

At a thought, my field activated and I summoned one of many random books that I had stored over the past few months. Rather than summoning it to my hand, however, I sent it flying straight at the man. He took the book straight to the face, pitching over backwards with a strangled cry.

"Or, you know," I said with a shrug. "The other way around. Whichever."

Fleur passed by my left side, giving me a brief thumbs up as she moved. While the girl ran, her hand kept lashing out to smack against the wall of the truck, including several smacks against the turret orbs. And in every spot that her hand touched, a semi-transparent glowing red image shaped sort of like a flower appeared for a few seconds before fading to be almost but not quite invisible.

While the other girl was doing that, I heard running footsteps and turned to see two more of the regular Merchants rushing our way. Both of them were carrying pistols, and they brought them to bear as they approached, spitting curses and threats.

Seeing the guns, I dove to the ground while activating my field. The first three shots were absorbed, and then I was down out of their arc of fire. Still, I kept the field up long enough to shove my arms into the ground all the way to my shoulders. Two holes were left behind as I pulled my arms back out and heaved myself back to my feet.

The men had changed their aim toward Fleur after I went down when they thought they'd hit me. They weren't ready for me to pop right back up, and neither had a chance to adjust before I pointed my own arms at them. A second later, the dirt that I had absorbed a moment earlier was shot back outward, forming a dust cloud right in their faces that sent them reeling and coughing. They fired off a couple more blind shots, but neither came anywhere near me.

I, on the other hand, was protected from the dust thanks to my visor. I was able to step right into the cloud before the men could recover and smack my hand against both of their guns. As they disappeared into my absorption field, I taunted them with, "No Red Ryder BB guns for you two. You'll shoot your eyes out!"

The nearest man threw a blind punch. I was already accessing the knowledge of the self-defense book that I had stored, and twisted aside from his blow before catching his wrist to throw him to the ground where he landed hard.

Unfortunately, the second man had recovered enough by that point that _**his**_ retaliatory kick struck home, and I joined the first man on the ground with a sudden sharp pain in my side that made it hard to breathe for a few seconds.

The standing man reared back to kick me again, but Manpower came out of nowhere to catch the guy by the back of his neck. Hoisting him up, the huge man cast the gang member aside like garbage.

By then, the man I had dropped to the ground had started to roll over. Before he could move, I lashed out with my own foot to kick him in the face, and blood immediately sprayed from his nose.

Then I was being hauled back to my feet by Manpower, who set me down and asked, "You good, kid?"

I'd barely had time to nod before Fleur rejoined us. "All set, go for it." She pointed back to the truck, where we could see dozens of her glowing flower prints all over it.

Grinning at the announcement, Manpower strode forward. As he moved, the man reached down to grab a metal pole that I belatedly recognized as part of the fence that he had obviously knocked down on his way in here. He held that pole up like an enormous bat, and swung it as hard as he could, straight at one of the glowing flower images.

In spite of its armor, that single, powerful blow made the massive truck literally cave in on itself. Every single spot that Fleur had touched acted as if _it_ had been struck by an even more powerful blow than the one that Manpower had dealt to the one spot he _had_ struck.

That was Fleur's power. She was able to, with a single touch, mark any non-living material with one of about a half dozen different glowing flower designs and colors. From that point on, as long as she maintained the marks, she could either enhanced any damage done to the material it was attached to by up to three times its original strength, or drop it down to about a quarter of what it had been. Additionally, every surface that had been marked by one of her flower images was affected by anything that struck any of the matching images.

In other words, when Fleur marked the truck with dozens of her red rose images, striking a single one of them affected all of them at the same time. And that single blow that struck every part was enhanced to be roughly three times as powerful as it should have been.

Since that single blow, multiplied three times and sent equally across almost the entire surface of the truck was delivered by Manpower, it was no wonder that the armored vehicle fell apart like a collection of legos being struck by a baseball bat.

At the sight of the truck being demolished so thoroughly, about half a dozen Merchants that had been scrambling toward it all hit the ground and put their arms over their heads in surrender.

"Nooo!" The scream came from nearby, and the three of us turned to see a rather trashy looking blonde woman, who wore a old greasy bandanna over her blonde hair, and a large set of steampunk goggles that covered the top half of her face. She held a heavy wrench in one hand. "What the fuck?! Do you cocksuckers have any idea how long I spent on that!?"

Squealer stood there, clearly glowering at us for about three seconds before it seemed to dawn on the woman that she was outnumbered and away from any kind of help, or any of her vehicles. The moment it did occur to her, the woman pivoted and started to sprint away.

Unfortunately for her, the turn only carried her almost straight into Panacea, who was standing behind her. The other girl's costume was white offset by a dark, almost blood-like red.

"Hey there," she greeted the woman who stumbled to a stop at the sight of her.

"Cunt!" Squealer shot back in return. "What're you gonna do, promise to heal me if I play nice?"

"I could," Panacea mused. "But you'd need to be hurt before I could offer to heal you."

Instead of doing the smart thing and trying to run another way, Squealer spat, "Fuck you!" At the same time, she lashed out with the wrench in a blow that would have probably broken a normal person's jaw.

Panacea, however, wasn't normal. Particularly not at the moment. She had clearly already taken one of her brute-formula potions, because the wrench clanged off of her face as if the Merchant villain had struck a metal wall with it.

"Got that out of your system now?" Panacea asked. Apparently it was a rhetorical question, because she didn't wait for an answer before catching hold of the wrench. After easily yanking it from Squealer's hand, she gave the woman a hard shove that knocked her backwards and to the ground.

Before the blonde could get up, Manpower stepped over and casually settled his foot down on her back. "Someone wanna search her for any surprises? And what are you doing over here, Panacea?"

Fleur and I both crouched down to look the woman over, taking away any extra weapons or tools she might have had a chance to pocket. Meanwhile, Panacea shrugged. "Had to chase down that guy over there." She nodded toward a fallen figure. "Shielder's got the exit, but it looks pretty clear already. Pretty sure Squealer there was the only cape in the area."

By the time Fleur and I thought that the squirming, angry Merchant was pretty much clear of anything she could use, there was a small pile of crap I couldn't even begin to guess at the uses for.

"Fascist fucking pricks!" Squealer was still cursing at us, unable to budge Manpower's foot. "You'll all pay. Soon as my Skidmark gets hold of ya, you'll-"

"Eww eww eww eww," I covered my ears and straightened up. "Okay, you guys know I'm all in on this hero stuff, but if she threatens me with her dirty drawers again, I might just have to give up and become an accountant."

Smirking at me, Panacea stepped over. From her belt, she withdrew a small vial and crouched down. Before Squealer knew what was happening, she tipped the vial into the woman's mouth and poured it down her throat. Squealer's mouth opened to scream an insult, but no sound emerged.

"She'll be on mute for about twenty minutes," Panacea explained. "I brought it for her boyfriend, but he doesn't seem to be here. Speaking of him though, if _**her**_ babbling bothers you, you probably shouldn't be around when we do bring in Skidmark. He makes her look like a nun." Her head tilted toward me before she added, "Unless nuns are your thing."

"My thing?" I echoed blankly.

Rather than explain, she just coughed. "Never mind." Touching her red visor, she spoke up. "Shielder, your area still good or do you need help?"

It was Lady Photon, however, who responded. "Junkyard's clear, no sign of reinforcements. The rest of their capes are probably either high or asleep. Nice job, everyone. Let's get everyone moved toward the south gate for pickup. Manpower, Archive, Fleur, and Panacea, start herding your people into one area and we'll call the PRT for a pickup."

Together, we started to do just that, gathering all of the surrendering Merchants to the same spot where Squealer was still desperately trying to curse us out, looking more comical with each passing moment as she opened her mouth wider and wider, turning purple from the effort she was putting into screaming.

"Now see," I scolded her once she caught my eye. "If you'd put half as much energy into your schoolwork as you're putting into trying to scream at us right now, you probably would've gone to Oxford or something."

Ignoring the woman's attempt to spit at me, I turned to look over the junkyard. The rest of the Brigade was approaching from the other areas, escorting their own prisoners.

So this was my first _real_ night out as a hero, as a part of the Brockton Bay Brigade. Sure, we'd only captured one actual cape, and even that had been out of her element, but these were actual bad guys we were taking down. Drug dealers, the type that sold to kids. Capes or not, they were dangerous people. Which meant that this was a good start.

Unfortunately, things could likely only go down from here. We had been prepared, we had ambushed the Merchants when they had no idea we were even coming, and there hadn't been any useful capes on the other side for defense. Next time, when it came, was bound to be a lot more dangerous.

I just hoped that I would be ready.

 **5-05 – Sophia**

 _ **Thursday, April 14th, 2011 (Same day)**_

The familiar crack of a gunshot split the evening air as the mercenary goon took a potshot at my descending figure. Unfortunately for the retard with the gun, his bullet passed right through my insubstantial, shadowy form and ricocheted off of the brick wall behind me. Fuckface had just enough time to realize that running really would have been his better option before I turned solid just long enough to plant my foot into the middle of his face. The momentum of my fall since I had thrown myself from the top of the last building punted the man to the ground, where he lay groaning.

"Err, Stalker, if you've got a minute or two, I could really use some help back here." The voice of the newest member of the Wards team, Chronicler, interrupted right after I'd landed. I hadn't even had time to fully enjoy the sight of the jackass bleeding on the ground where he belonged.

The urge to tell the boy to go screw himself, and that if he wasn't good enough to take a couple no-name thugs then he should quit and do something easy, rose within me. I bit it back and used my own comm long enough to grunt a reply. "Fine, I'm on my way back. Don't die before I get there."

Striding forward, I took the time to roll my guy onto his chest. He howled something about his nose, but I ignored it and grabbed his arms. "Aww, poor baby." I spat the words while carefully securing his wrists with PRT issue zip ties. "Maybe you should've thought about a couple things before you became a fucking thug. Like how much getting kicked in the face hurts."

After securing the man's ankles the same way, I straightened and started to move back the way I had come, going by street level this time rather than over the rooftops. While running, I activated the com once more. "Aegis, pick-up for the paddy wagon on the corner of Eleventh and Finwood."

From his own place back in the control room where he was monitoring the night's patrols, Aegis responded, "Got it, Stalker. Might be awhile, the Brigade just called in for a big haul of Merchants." He paused, clearly choosing his words carefully. "Is medical required?"

Rolling my eyes so hard they nearly flipped backwards out of my skull, I adopted as sarcastically sweet of a tone as I could manage. "Why, the poor ookums might need a bandaid or two for his widdle bwuddy nose, and some ice for is ickle owie bwuises, but he a big boy! Yes he is, yeeeesss he is!"

Without missing a beat, Aegis replied, "Minor first aid needed, understood. How long until you reach Chronicler's location? He had to take cover in that toy store about four blocks from there."

"Take cover?" I echoed in disbelief while continuing my sprint. "There were like two guys with bats, so unless someone dressed him up like a giant fucking baseball, what the hell is he taking cover from?"

It was Chronicler who answered. Whoops, I hadn't realized that he was listening. "Bat guys weren't the problem. It's the dudes with laser guns that decided to come play. Can't get a long enough look at them to use my power before they start making this place look like disco night at the roller derby."

That news made me frown. "Lasers? Only Coil's mercs use lasers, and these other guys are Empire goons. Why the fuck are Coil's people rescuing a couple Empire shits?"

"Hold on, I'll just go ahead and ask them." The sarcasm in Chronicler's voice was palpable. A moment later, he reported, "They said, 'pew pew pew pew.' Maybe someone else can translate that."

Snorting in spite of myself, I rounded the corner just in time to see several rapid flashes of light coming from the next street over. Chronicler wasn't making this shit up, apparently.

As I approached, I had time to get a better look at the scene since no one had noticed me yet. There really were a few of Coil's mercenaries laying down covering fire from the laser weapons that they all carried. From the looks of it, they had three guys making sure that the other Ward stayed under cover, while another two were grappling with the very same Empire goons that I'd left Chronicler to deal with.

Right, so it wasn't a rescue, it was a... kidnapping? But that just raised more questions. Why would Coil's men want to _abduct_ the Empire fucks rather than just shoot them in the face?

Oh well, either way my job at the moment was to stop them from filling my teammate with little yellow bolts of light. The other questions could wait for the people that had the patience to ask them.

To that end, I shifted back into my shadow state before the sound of my running could give me away. My hands plucked the two small crossbows from their places on my belt, and I took aim while running.

The first shot struck home, nailing the left-most of the mercs that were still shooting at Chronicler. The tranquilizer bolt sank into the man's neck, and he stumbled before dropping his weapon.

Unfortunately, the shot from the other crossbow _barely_ missed the guy furthest to the right. Must have been a fucking breeze or something. Whatever it was, the man clearly felt it brush past him, because he turned and fired off a snap-shot in my direction while calling out a warning.

I dodged the bolt, diving sideways behind a car. Sure, I was _pretty_ confident that the laser wouldn't really hurt me in my shadow-form, but pretty confident wasn't certain. I'd rather not find out at all.

"One down, four left," I reported over the comm while taking cover behind the car. "And I've got their attention. Chronicler, when I tell you to, pop up and do your thing on the trigger-happy cocksuckers."

"All right, if you're sure they'll be looking in your direction when I do," he insisted.

After checking my crossbows, I smirked to myself. "Oh trust me, they'll be looking at me." With that, I went back into my shadow-state and flung myself forward through the car itself. As soon as I reached the other side, I lifted the crossbows and shot off a pair of bolts. Both of them struck one of the two men that had been dragging the now-unconscious Empire thugs toward the waiting van. He fell almost immediately, dropping the man that he'd been carting around in the process.

That was enough to ensure that the morons with the guns were completely focused on me. Their lasers filled the air while I ran toward the second of the men that had been tasked with thug retrieval.

Thankfully, Chronicler wasn't a _complete_ waste of air and actually did what he was supposed to. While the two armed men were focused on me, a cloud of gas-like energy enveloped the pair before semi-solid duplicates of each man appeared a few feet away and opened fire back on their original selves.

By that point, I had reached the remaining guy. He'd already dropped the figure he'd been dragging toward the van, and snatched his sidearm from its holster. As he brought it up, however, I shot off a bolt from one of my own crossbows that knocked the weapon from the man's hand.

Then I was on him. He ducked around my next shot and, before I could jump to my shadow-state, brought his knee up to knock one of the crossbows from my grasp. He tried to follow that up with a backhand, but I was shadow by that point and his fist passed through me. The same could not, however, be said for _my_ fist when I reverted to my solid shape long enough to slam it into his masked face.

Fuck, ow. The mask was padded. That hurt. But it apparently hurt the man as well, because he reeled backwards long enough for me to follow up my attack. I jumped, kicking out twice. The first hit the man in his padded stomach while the second hit his face again. Neither were that effective, but it did force the son of a bitch to stumble slightly. And that brought him right where I needed him to be.

Perfect. As soon as the man was unknowingly in place, I turned insubstantial again and leapt forward. Doing so sent me right through the man, a rather disorienting feeling but one that I was accustomed to by that point. More importantly, it put me both behind the man and directly inside the waiting van that he had been trying to drag his apparent prisoner into for whatever reason.

Landing inside the van, I vaguely noticed the man in the driver's seat jerk in surprise. For that instant, I ignored him to focus on my opponent. I was turning solid while reaching out to grab the man from behind while he was still trying to figure out where I'd gone. He twisted, but I caught hold of his arm and brought it down partway into the van. With a grim smirk, I caught hold of the van's door with my other hand and gave it a hard yank. It tried to close while fuckface's arm was in the way, and I heard a satisfying crack when the two collided. The man howled in pain, and I let him fall to the ground.

By that point, the man in the driver's seat had twisted around enough to bring his own weapon to bear. I went back into my shadow-state, but it wasn't a gun that the man was holding. Instead, a blinding staccato of flashing lights erupted from his empty hand, along with a cacophony of earsplitting sounds. Combined, the two made me jerk backwards in surprise, turning solid just long enough for the man whose arm I had broken to yank me by the ankle. The engine of the van was roaring even as I landed hard on the pavement, and I rolled out of the way as it leapt away from the curb with the injured man still hanging partway out of it. He looked over his shoulder at me, clearly glaring while hauling himself in the rest of the way. Then the driver punched it, and the van tore off down the street.

Still blinking spots out of my vision, I heaved myself back up to follow after them. Before I could get anywhere, however, Chronicler caught my arm. When I spun back that way, he tried to say something. Unfortunately, all I could hear was the loud ringing from whatever the fucking driver had used on me.

After shoving the boy away from me (semi-gently so that no one would get their panties in a twist), I held my hand up to the side of my head and shouted, "What?!"

Realizing the problem, the boy leaned closer while raising his voice. "-said-ood- punny—back!"

Growling under my breath, I stepped back and shoved my hands against the side of my head, giving my ears a vigorous rub before shaking my head almost violently to clear them. Then I focused on the boy. "God fucking damn it, if I'm deaf now, I'm gonna-" I trailed off upon realizing that I could hear my own voice. It was faint, but my hearing was definitely coming back. "Right, what?"

"I said," Chronicler repeated one more time in what was clearly a near-shout, "we should wait here in case those guys have company and circle around to come back! We've already got plenty of prisoners to deal with until the PRT shows up!" He nodded toward me then. "What'd they hit you with anyway!? I just saw a flash of light and then you came falling out!"

I frowned, still trying to rub my ears through the side of the mask. "You didn't hear that fucking noise?"

"Uh, no?" The boy shook his head, keeping his voice raised for me to hear. "I didn't hear anything!"

Huh. I thought about that for a second before muttering, "A new fucking cape, I think."

"Wait," Chronicler held a hand up. "Their cape was stuck playing getaway driver? Why?"

I snorted at that and barely resisted the urge to call the boy a moron. "Probably to make sure they could get away. It worked, sort of. And he probably doesn't understand his power enough to count on it yet. I don't think anyone's seen him use it before tonight. I haven't heard of that flashbang power shit anyway."

"Flashbang," I could hear the smirk in Chronicler's voice. "Too bad his perfect name is already taken."

"Yeah," I rolled my eyes while responding. "That's a national fucking tragedy."

Starting to take a step so that we could report in, I stopped short suddenly and frowned. My eyes moved to the crossbow that had been knocked out of my hand earlier, then to both hips. Then I cursed, loudly. My hearing was pretty much back to normal, but I cursed again, even louder. And a third time.

I had dropped one of my crossbows in that _**fucking**_ van. And now it was gone. Fuck!

* * *

 _ **Friday, April 15th, 2011**_

"We really need to come up with a name for you before you start kicking gangbanger ass."

It was the next evening, and Bryce was talking to me from the safety of his garage through the radio communicator that he had cobbled together using parts of a couple cell phones and some other stuff. The earbud wasn't as small as the one I wore for the Wards, and the signal wasn't quite as clear. But it did have an advantage in that Pig-Out couldn't overhear the conversation and butt in whenever she wanted to, which gave this thing like fifty billion points over the other one.

I'd gotten a thorough scolding for losing that fucking crossbow, as if I'd done it on purpose. Piggot had read me the riot act, adding that I was already in hot water for 'the incident with the Undersiders.' Yeah, go figure. I wasn't praised for bringing Grue in safe and sound. Instead, I'd gotten chewed out for 'letting my obsession with him stop me from retrieving the stolen items.' In other words, because I'd grabbed the actual criminal instead of the folders that the other Undersiders had ended up escaping with, I was in trouble.

Forcing my mounting anger at that thought down, I replied to Bryce while striding down an empty alley in the middle of the city. "You said you were going to tell me what this suit is capable of once I got out here and started walking around. Maybe you should do that before we get too far ahead of ourselves."

The suit itself was, at its base, a set of dark green coveralls like the kind that mechanics wore. Bryce had stuffed some kind of padding material between the outer and inner layers. Additionally, I had the gloves that he'd been using before, a pair of dark combat boots, and a simple black ski mask with an attached set of green ski goggles. At least, they looked like ski goggles. Bryce had managed to make them amplify light in the dark and dim it in brightness. Plus there was some kind of tiny camera in them that was sending streaming video back to where he was. Honestly, it was pretty cool, but I wasn't going to say that and make the kid's head swell any more than it already had.

"Right, fine," the boy sounded disgruntled. Too bad, I needed to know what this suit could do before we did anything else. "Okay, uhh, the padding in that uniform should preeeetty much protect you from things like normal knives and whatever. Plus I'm pretty sure it'll stop most blunt impact. You know, up to a point. Lemme know how that works, okay? Oh, but it won't take a bullet though, so be careful."

"No getting shot, got it," I muttered. The truth was, I didn't plan on taking any chances anyway. If it came down to it, I'd just use my _actual_ power and pretend the shot had missed me or something.

He went on. "The boots you're wearing can boost your jump so you should get about three times your normal lift if you push it. I already showed you how to use the electric grip on the gloves. Oh, and speaking of which, both those gloves and the boots can like, stick to walls and shit. It's pretty sweet."

"These gloves couldn't do that before, right?" I asked, looking down at them while stepping out of the alley.

"Nope," Bryce replied, sounding smug. "I sort of took them apart and made them better so they'd fit you right. Then I thought about some other stuff I could put on them, so I did it again. This is the, uhh, fourth version. And I have some more ideas, so don't fucking lose them or anything, got it?"

I opened my mouth to respond to that, then stopped as my gaze fell on a girl walking down the street a block further down. She was as black as I was, with a sort of punk-like look to her appearance. I guessed her age at thirteen or fourteen, somewhere in there, and part of her hair had a stripe of purple in it. From the look of her, she was probably too young to be out on the streets this late.

She was also being followed by a couple of thugs that definitely weren't trying to flag the girl down for directions.

"You see this?" I asked Bryce while keeping my gaze on the three distant figures. They were coming my direction, but they were all on the other side of the street and none had noticed me yet.

"Uh huh," he replied, clearly thinking with something other than his brain. "She's hot."

"Not her, dumbass," I shot back. "The guys following her."

"Oh, yeah, those guys. You think they're Empire?"

I snorted. "Let's just say I'm pretty sure they subscribe to the same newsletter."

Sure enough, by that point one of the men had circled around and sped up. He stepped in front of the girl, clearly leering while his buddy came up closer behind her.

I was moving before I thought about it, crossing the street even as the girl started to turn away from the man who had cut her off. She saw the man behind her, and the first man caught her by the arm.

Interestingly, the girl didn't scream. Instead, she spun and drove her knee up into the man's crotch while stabbing her fingers up into his eyes. The man jerked back and dropped with a scream, and the girl tore herself free of his grasp before starting to run around him.

The guy's partner drew a wicked looking knife and started to run after her, but I decided to test Bryce's work. Throwing myself into a leap, I crossed most of the distance between us, a solid ten foot lunge that planted me right between the man and his prey.

"Going somewhere?" I snarled at the man.

Lifting that long knife with its curved, wavy blade, the man sneered. "Fuck me, you supposed to be a cape or some shit? Perfect. Screw that dumb nigger bitch, I drag **your** ass back to Hookwolf, ain't no way I don't get in the tournament."

Hookwolf. One of the big guys in the Empire.

"What tournament?" Bryce asked in my ear.

"Fuck if I know," I replied dismissively. "Stop distracting me."

The man was still sneering, still waving that wavy blade. "You talking to yourself, bitch? What do you call yourself, huh? I'll tell Hookwolf when I drop your corpse in front of him."

"Told you we needed to come up with a name," Bryce put in smugly.

"Name?" I turned slightly and lashed out, kicking the face of the man that the other girl had kneed in the groin while he was still trying to push himself up.

While I was turned, the standing thug tried to stab me from behind with that knife. I resisted the instinctive urge to jump into my shadow-state, lifting my arm and twisting slightly instead. The knife and the arm that it was attached to slid into the space between my raised arm and my side. Before the man could yank it back, I dropped my arm and trapped his, catching onto his wrist with my opposite hand in the same motion.

Smirking over my shoulder at him, I shoved down with my weight while pushing up with the hand on his wrist. For the second time in as many days, I got to hear an asshole's strangled cry as his arm was broken.

Before he could recover, I came back around to face the man and placed both hands against his shoulders. "Call me Hinder," I announced while triggering the electricity the way that Bryce had shown me. The man jerked backwards and dropped to the ground, twitching convulsively while I continued. "Because I sure do like interfering with the plans you fucktards come up with."

"Aww, man," Bryce was complaining. "Why didn't you tell me you had a name ready? I could've worked it into the costume."

Ignoring that, I turned from the still-twitching man to look for the knife he had dropped. I found it, but it wasn't on the ground. Instead, the girl from earlier was standing there with it. She had the blade pressed close to the neck of the first man, who was holding very, very still.

"What was that you were talking about?" The girl demanded. "You're gonna do what to me? Wanna repeat it?"

"Hey kid," I started.

"Don't call me a kid," she snapped. "My name's Aisha, not kid."

"Fair enough," I conceded. "Look, Aisha, you don't wanna do anything with that knife. This isn't self defense anymore, and take it from me, he **really** ain't worth the trouble it'll get you."

"Hinder, right?" She glowered at me, her hand shaking. It felt like something else was bothering her a lot more than just these guys, but I couldn't guess what. "Did you hear what this cocksucker said to me?"

"I can guess," I said easily, trying to keep my voice calm and even. Fuck, the last thing I needed on my first night out was a body. That was something the PRT would investigate, and I wasn't sure my disguise would hold up too much against them if they looked too closely. "But he's still not worth it."

For a moment, I wasn't sure what would happen. Then Aisha muttered something under her breath before stepping back to let the man slump down. "Whatever. I'm keeping this though," she waved the wicked looking knife.

"You earned it," I agreed. "You staying for the cops or what?"

From the look on her face, I had an idea of what the girl thought of cops. "Fuck no," she spat the words before turning on her heels. "I'm outta here."

She took a few steps before something made me call out, "Aisha." When she looked back, I told her, "You stood up for yourself pretty well. Nice job."

The girl didn't say anything, though it looked like she was about to. Whatever it was, she just ended up shrugging. "Whatever." Then she left.

"Right, we need to call the cops for these assholes." I turned away and knelt in front of the two downed men. "But first... what exactly did you mean by tournament?"

 **5-06 – Emma**

 _ **Thursday, April 14th, 2011 (Night of Brigade fight w/Merchants and SS/Chronicler fight w/Empire)**_

"Okay, as far as my friend knows, her brother does still work for that construction company." I spoke in a somewhat hushed voice while holding my phone tight my ear and looking around. I was on the roof of the hospital, and the chance of anyone overhearing me from up here was pretty much nil, but I still wanted to make sure, just in case. It paid to be careful, especially right now.

That was one of the main reasons I was even here to begin with. The hospital, not the same one that Taylor had been in, obviously, was where I had been assigned my community service. Not showing up would raise a lot of alarm bells, which was the last thing that I wanted to happen at the moment.

So I had been going through the motions today, doing the jobs that I was assigned here in this hospital. Other than now, when I had snuck up to the roof during one of my breaks to make this call, I had spent most of the day trying desperately not to obsess over what I was going to be doing the next night.

I was also trying not to think about how curt Madison's response had been. Not that I could really blame her for that. I hadn't really talked to her much since two of us had tried to go to the authorities about Sophia and been pretty much shut down, and I was pretty sure she at least partly blamed me for it. Which was probably fair, considering the hand my own father had had in the whole process.

"Good to know," Lisa's voice came back through the phone a moment later. "I'd hate to think that we were wasting our time out here." I heard her speak to someone else then, telling them to go ahead.

Glancing back to the roof access door once more, I lowered my voice reflexively. "You're sure this won't be connected back to him, right? I'd really rather not get Madison's brother fired from his job."

I was treading a seriously thin line right here, as far as keeping my personal life separate from cape life went. I didn't want Madison to be involved in this cape stuff at all, but the opportunity was too great to pass up. We had been out scouting the area we were going to have to use for this rescue mission, and I had thought that I recognized her brother among a group of workers that were doing road construction.

"Leet says there's no way they'll figure out where it came from," Lisa assured me after a murmured conversation. "Nimue and Hax are heading into the house now. They'll replace his uniform clothes with the ones that Leet fixed up. If this goes well, we'll be good to go tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," I murmured under my breath. "Great. You sure we'll be ready by then?"

There was a pause before she replied. "We have to be. It's the best time, the _**only**_ time where we have a shot at this. The PRT and Protectorate patrol any kind of transfer too heavily for us to try anything on the way. Especially this one. They'll expect us to go after the transport itself. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a whole squad ready to jump us the second we poke our heads out anywhere along that route, just so they can tell the news how they shut down our entire team within a week."

I nodded absently, distracted by a light show that was happening off in the distance as I stared across the city. There were lasers and flashes that reflected off of the nearby building windows. A cape fight? From the look of things and the fact that most of the lights were coming from what looked like flyers, I was going to guess that it involved the Brigade. Who were they fighting though? Lung, maybe?

God, I hoped they brought him in and finished shutting down that damn gang. Which might not have been that charitable a thought to have about what was, in all honesty, a _fellow_ criminal. But I remembered that Lung's gang had been on their way to attack the Undersiders over some kind of stupid territory dispute when this all started, and I really wasn't looking forward to that kind of rivalry.

Besides, I had my own personal reasons for hating the ABB.

Lisa was still talking. "Thanks to the boss owing us for getting those files to him, we know when they're making this transfer. And we know that they've got way too many eyes on it for us to stand a chance at getting Grue and the others out of there. They're ready for us everywhere along the route. Which means we have to hit them somewhere that they're _not_ ready for us."

I'd asked where the boss got his information before, but all the other girl would tell me was that he 'had his ways.' A mole inside the PRT, most likely. Which made me wonder yet again who this boss was and why he was being so mysterious. Was he a cape, or not? Maybe he was just some rich guy with a lot of money and too much time on his hands or something. But what did he get out of this? Why would he put so much effort into getting those files. Most importantly, what did he _want?_

There were more voices in the background for a few seconds, and then Lisa's voice returned. "It's done. We'll see if it works tomorrow. If it does, we'll be good to go."

Good to go. Of course. Good to rescue three of our teammates from the authorities. Good to commit a few dozen more felonies. Good to throw myself deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole.

"I'll be ready."

* * *

 _ **Friday, April 15th, 2011 (The next evening, same night as Sophia's first outing as Hinder)**_

"Still can't believe that bitch broke my camera drone." Leet was complaining again. I was starting to think that the only reason he'd provided communication earbuds for Tattletale, Nimue, and me to use during this mission was so that he'd have more people to listen to his bitching. "Do you have any idea how many new viewers we could get if we pull this off? I'm talking about adding commas here."

Beside me in the alley where the two of us were standing, Hax replied to her teammate. "Je suis tannée. Get over it. You wouldn't be able to use the drone anyway. You think the PRT aren't watching for it?"

Leet's grumbling voice said something else, but I wasn't listening. Instead, I shifted the backpack full of equipment that I'd been given while looking toward the girl next to me. "You're French?" I asked, feeling a bit awkward about the whole situation. I hadn't really much to Hax since she had revealed that Regent was her brother. I had heard enough to know that Alec didn't know that she was around, had no idea that she was Hax, and that their relationship wasn't close.

For a moment, the girl just gave me a long look that was inscrutable beyond her simple cloth mask. "That was French-Canadian," she finally said. "J-" She stopped. "Alec and I spent a lot of time there."

I was quiet for a couple minutes before speaking again, "So, if he doesn't know that you're here... how do you know, uhh, you know, where he is and what he's been doing? How does that work."

I didn't think she was going to answer, but finally Hax spoke with a dismissive shrug that wasn't entirely convincing. "I'm special. And I've been keeping an eye on my kid brother. Is that a crime?"

Before I could say anything else, Tattletale spoke over the comm. She and Nimue would be in their own positions, waiting for Hax and me to do our part. "Trojan is entering the construction site."

Madison's brother was Trojan, obviously. If everything worked the way it was supposed to, the moment that Trevor walked into the construction site next door to the PRT building, it should...

"We have a connection!" Leet's voice crowed triumphantly. "Fuck yeah. Thank you, Mister Walking Signal Booster. If you were a babe, I'd kiss you right now."

I could hear the smirk in Hax's voice. "And the poor guy just felt some inexplicable sense of relief."

Right, so it was working so far. Leet had apparently designed some kind of tinker device that penetrated the shielded PRT communication and computer network. The only problem had been getting it close enough, since the range was fairly short, particularly against something that was heavily shielded. We hadn't known what to do, considering the PRT kept a close eye on everyone that came near their building and we couldn't exactly set something up and just hope they didn't notice it.

The solution had been Madison's brother. Trevor's uniform clothes had been replaced with replicas that contained the hack booster device disguised as one of the buttons. According to Leet, the booster would do its job, then fry itself from the inside with no one being the wiser.

"Boom! I'm in the security network," Leet announced. "Shutting down sensors in your area now."

As soon as that was done, I activated my own power. The world went red, and I immediately ran forward, moving as fast as I could since I really didn't want to have to reappear at any point during this initial entry. No matter how fast I was about popping in and out of time, I was pretty sure one of the guards keeping watch would notice. So I had to cross several blocks (the nearest we dared get to the building in question ahead of time) without dropping out of the time-freeze. And I had to carry this backpack of equipment with me.

I almost missed the sign, the small blotch in the middle of the road about where Tattletale had shot a paintball earlier to show me where I was going to need to go. As soon as I noticed it, I stood on the spot and focused on the same sort of sensation that I used to float. This time, however, I was going _down_ rather than up. Sinking through the concrete right where the paintball mark was, I saw pipes, a small sewer, and more electrical cables than I'd imagined would be in the ground.

Finally, just as I felt like I couldn't hold my breath any longer, I emerged from the cement and dirt into a small maintenance shaft, right where Tattletale had said it would be. The place was only large enough to crawl through, but there was oxygen, and that was all I cared about right then.

Returning time to normal as I crouched there in the small tunnel, I sucked in air for a few long seconds. Ahead of me, I could see a small camera in the wall focused directly on me.

"I seeeee you." Leet had adopted a creepy, weird voice. "Sound all alerts, intruder, intruder."

"Oh shut up," I muttered, flushing a bit under my mask. The truth was that even with my power, the camera was a reminder that I couldn't have gotten any further than this without him. If Leet's little toy hadn't taken over the camera that was now staring at me, or any of the dozens of other security measures in this area, I would have appeared and instantly been captured.

A short time later, I had company as Hax dropped through the ceiling and landed in the tunnel with me. She had gone the long way, making herself intangible simply by using her power to declare that solid objects would pass right through her body. Then she'd come up the same way I had, only below the ground. Basically, she had walked all the way here by walking through the ground like it was air. Leet had called it her 'no-clip mode', whatever the hell _that_ meant.

As soon as she was in the small maintenance tunnel with me, Hax started to crawl forward. I followed suit. We passed more cameras, containment foam projectors, and other security measures on our way.

"Stop," Leet's voice announced a few minutes later. "You're right there. The spot you want is to your left." Hax started to put her hand out, and he corrected, "Shit biscuits, I mean your right. My left." The camera that he was watching us with was directly ahead of us.

I heard Hax snort, before she put her hand out to touch the wall to the right that time. Then she looked to me expectantly. "Your turn, princess."

Shuffling the backpack in front of me, I reached inside before coming out with another of Leet's inventions. This one looked like a metal picture frame about a foot across. Holding it up near the wall, I tugged on both corners and the thing started to widen. There were several metallic clicks as I pulled the sides out until the thing was about as wide as an average window. Then I carefully pushed the thing up against the wall and held it in place until a suctioning noise announced that it was attached.

Letting go of the frame, I pressed the button on the side of it that Leet had obsessively pointed out to me so many times that I could have used it in my sleep. As soon as I did, there was a low humming noise, and a thick grid of tiny lasers danced within the confines of the frame. They ate away at the metal of the wall, first directly between the frame and then further back as time went on. While we sat there waiting, the lasers vaporized several feet of steel in about sixty seconds.

Then it stopped. I pried the frame off and leaned in to peer through at the elevator shaft that we had just lasered our way into. Like the maintenance tunnel, there was plenty of security inside the elevator shaft that would have sounded every alarm known to mankind if Leet's device hadn't stopped it.

I just hoped it held up. He'd promised that the thing wouldn't be noticed for at least an hour, but Tattletale had said we should halve that just to be safe, and I was more inclined to listen to her.

"Sweet, we are so fucking awesome," Leet was ecstatic about this whole situation. He didn't even seem that scared about getting caught. Which made sense, I supposed. After all, he was taking the least amount of personal risk. "Okay, Shifty, look to your left in that hole you made. Right there. See that set of green wires just sort of dangling there? Take the wire cutters I gave ya and snip the one closest to you. Then just attach the clamp thing from the bag and I'll be in the second layer of their security."

The bit with Madison's brother had been enough to get past the first layer. But for Tattletale and Nimue's part of this to work, we were going to have to give Leet access to the next layer. And that meant tying him into the system directly rather than with that remote booster.

Following his instructions to the letter, I attached the small blue clamp to the cut wire. It began to glow, which I hoped was a good thing.

Sure enough, Leet let out a bellow of triumph. "Go for it, Undersider Babes. You're up." A second later, the boy added, "You know, if this Undersiders thing doesn't work out, you three could totally join us and be Uber and Leet's Angels. You could wear-"

"Fantasize later, dork." Hax spat the words almost venomously.

"We're going in," Tattletale used the brief silence to say. "Wish us luck."

"No luck needed, babe." Leet assured her. "We're in the system, so we're free and clear. You are Agent April Ryan, and your companion there is Agent Heather Mason."

While my two teammates were doing their thing, it was time for the next stage of our part. To that end, I grabbed the backpack and crawled through the opening that the laser-frame had made. Once through it, I looked around. There was a maintenance ladder a few feet away from the hole we had made. The shaft above me went up about a hundred feet before reaching the exit where the prisoner loading dock was. The elevator car was up there. Below me, it extended another two hundred feet or so. The PRT prison was very deep underground, and filled with security that was supposed to prevent anyone from doing exactly what we were doing.

"Here goes," I whispered before freezing time. Then I floated myself up through the shaft before reaching the bottom of the elevator. Then I took a second to peek up into the car itself. Finding it empty, I floated inside and waited for Hax.

A moment later she joined me. As soon as we were both inside, I unslung the backpack and reached within. This time I produced a toy made not by Leet, but by Nimue. It was a small box filled with a handful of what _looked_ like small silver buttons.

Carefully, I started to set up the buttons around the elevator, in the locations that Nimue had said they should go. Once they were all in place, I stepped back and checked to make sure they weren't immediately noticeable. When that looked good, I nodded to Hax. "Let's try it out."

She moved to stand in the middle of the elevator, and I put myself near the closed doors and turned around so that I was looking into the rest of the elevator. After hitting a button on the remote that Nimue had provided, I watched Hax as the other girl proceeded to do absolutely nothing for thirty seconds.

Then I hit the remote button again, and the hologram field disabled, making the image of Hax vanish. Suddenly, the exit hatch of the elevator was open, and the girl's legs were dangling through, swinging back and forth.

I grinned behind my mask. "It works," I announced. "All I saw was you standing there."

Essentially, the toys that Nimue had made created a holographic image of anything and projected it over what was actually there. So we could take an image of the back half of the elevator and project it so that anyone in the front half would only see what we wanted them to see.

After that, there was nothing for Hax and me to do except wait and hope this worked as well as Leet was saying it would. Somewhere outside the elevator, Tattletale and Nimue would be entering the PRT parking lot wearing the uniforms of PRT agents to join the many that were already there. The uniforms had been designed to bulk the two up just a little bit in order to make them look more convincing, and the normal face concealing masks the PRT agents wore should handle the rest of it.

Of course, if Leet's hack of the system didn't work and those ID cards they were carrying failed, this would turn into the shortest jail break in history.

After a couple minutes of silence, Tattletale's voice came back in a hushed tone. "Dauntless is here. So are Vista, Aegis and Clockblocker. And a whole bunch of guards. They really want to grab us."

We'd been expecting that. Hell, we figured that was part of the reason they were moving the prisoners at night, to make the streets as clear as possible for our rescue attempt so that they could catch all of us together. And that was why we weren't planning on letting the convoy get that far.

Five more long, tense minutes passed before Leet spoke again. "They're bringing the prisoners through the tunnel to the elevator. Get ready in there."

At those words, Hax and I both climbed up and out of the elevator to reach the outside. Perching there, we replaced the hatch for the moment and waited.

Sure enough, we could hear the elevator doors open below us. There was a tromp of feet as a handful of PRT agents walked on, and then the elevator started to descend.

The second that it did, I froze time and dropped into the elevator shaft. Looking around, I let out a sigh of relief. There were, as expected, four PRT agents in here. One for each corner. The two at the front were unfamiliar, while the two at the back I recognized as Nimue and Tattletale. Each had what **looked** like of the special containment foam spraying tanks on their backs. They had made it into position.

Once that was confirmed, I floated myself back up once more and resumed time before giving Hax a thumbs up. I stayed silent however, not wanting to risk saying anything.

"Christ," I heard one of the guards within the elevator complain. "Is it me or does this damn thing get slower every time we use it?"

I didn't know about other times, but Leet was deliberately slowing the elevator slightly in order to give us more time to pull this off. Even then, I was afraid we wouldn't make it. Things were going to be very close as it was.

Eventually, the elevator stopped at the bottom of the shaft. There was some shuffling going on below us, and more voices as other guards exchanged words. A couple of dull thumps announced that our teammates were on board the elevator, and then there was a whoosh as the doors closed.

Freezing time, I poked my head down to look inside. The four PRT agents (well, two and the two false ones) were still in their positions. Between them, taking up most of the space in the freight elevator, there were several of what was essentially upright hospital gurneys, like those handcarts that movers use. These ones were six feet tall, and completely encased their occupants save for their heads, which stuck out of the top of each. Basically they were upright coffins for people that hadn't died yet. They were designed to transport dangerous cape prisoners safely. These particular prisoners happened to be Bitch, Regent, and Uber.

No Grue. Where the hell was he? What... what were we supposed to do?

As soon as I saw them, I brought my head back out and let time go on long enough to look at Hax and whisper, "Grue's not there."

"Sucks to be him," she replied. "We can only do this once."

I didn't know what to do. For a moment, I panicked. We couldn't just come back and get Grue later. Why wasn't he here?!

"Keep going," I heard Tattletale's murmured voice. She couldn't risk saying anything else. It was enough though. We were going to go on with the plan. Apparently we'd have to figure out something for Brian later.

To that end, Hax hauled up the emergency exit hatch as quietly as possible. Then she dropped inside. I followed suit, and the two of us were inside the elevator, standing between Tattletale and Nimue, and behind the transport gurneys that were carrying our teammates. The way things had been set up, the hologram would project not only the prisoners, but also Nimue and Tattletale so that the two real PRT agents wouldn't see anything that was happening. Unless, of course, they moved too much.

Please be lazy, PRT agents. Please, please be lazy.

They certainly weren't quiet. The two guards were holding a loud conversation with one another about some baseball game or something that both had been a part of. That might have been a problem if they tried to talk to their two companions. But we had anticipated that (and figured even the most clueless PRT agent might notice if their companions never spoke), so Leet was using a voice disguiser to carry on both of their parts of the conversation. Thanks to Nimue's hologram device, his voice(s) would come from where the real agents expected to hear them.

Since the hologram (and Leet's chatter) was covering their actions from their unknowing companions, my two teammates moved as soon as they saw us. Nimue stepped over to where Bitch's upright gurney was, while Tattletale moved to Regent's, and Hax dealt with Uber's. All of them started a bit when we appeared, but realized what was going on pretty quickly.

Working silently and swiftly, the other three undid the restraints that kept our teammates locked down. While they were doing that, I moved in front of them so that they could see me. Then I held my hand up right where the invisible line was where the edge of the hologram happened to be before shaking my head and wagging my finger for them not to cross it. The three of them all nodded silently, though Rachel's was a bit reluctant. I had the feeling she was putting up with me more because she hated being a prisoner even more than she disliked me personally.

Once they were unstrapped, I helped guide the four of them to the back of the elevator where the hatch was. Uber went first, then helped Rachel and Alec up and out.

Hax joined them, where she would be pointing out the ladder to the four, and ushering them to jump off the rising elevator to reach the maintenance tunnel that we had cut into the elevator shaft from.

While that was happening, Nimue and Tattletale shrugged off the containment foam canisters from their backs and set them on the ground between the now-empty prisoner transfer cages.

Then the three of us climbed up and out of the elevator as well, with Uber's help. He was crouched on top of the elevator, waiting to haul each of us up.

Once there, we were very near the top of the elevator shaft. About forty-five seconds had passed. It felt like about six times that. I could see the others already on the maintenance ladder, taking turns crawling into the hole that we had made.

Just before the elevator reached the top of the shaft, Tattletale and Nimue jumped free to land on the ladder at two different points. I tapped my earbud and whispered, "Leet, do it."

From within the elevator, there was a sudden shriek of warning. A computerized voice warned about containment failure, before a different one gave its own warning about a malfunction. Then the voice that Leet had been using for Tattletale blurted in a panic, "My canister, it's gonna-"

Then there was a loud, muffled thump as both of the specially prepared foam canisters that the other two had carried in exploded. The elevator would be _completely_ filled with the instant hardening stuff, blocking anyone from seeing into it until the people outside managed to melt enough of the foam to get in and see that not only were there only two guards left, but all of their prisoners were gone.

Smiling a little to myself, I joined the others on the ladder before climbing down and into the hole. Alarms were blaring elsewhere, and I could hear voices shouting from above as the gathered PRT agents and capes tried to figure out how to get into the elevator was completely filled with stuff that they had deliberately made it so difficult to get through.

Once all of us were in the maintenance tunnel, Leet spoke up. "God damn I wish we had this on video. Fuck! Our viewers are never gonna believe this shit. Fine, whatever. Everybody squeeze in real close and wrap that tele-rope around you.

From the bag that I had brought, I produced the last toy. This, another invention from Leet, was a rope that wrapped around us. Once it was cinched tight and activated, the rope would transport anything within it to its twin where Leet was.

I'd asked why he didn't just rebuild his teleport beam from his camera drone, but all he had done was glare at me for almost a full minute. It was kind of unnerving.

So, we had this... tele-rope, as Leet called it. We got the thing wrapped around us rather awkwardly. There was a loud humming noise, and then my stomach seemed to turn inside out. My vision twisted around suddenly, giving me a brief, splitting headache, and then I stumbled backwards as the rope fell.

As disorienting as it had been, at least it had worked. We were all standing inside the small garage that Leet had been using as a temporary workshop while we set all this up. We were safe. We were gone. We were out of the PRT tunnels, and away from their building. We'd done it, we'd rescued... almost everyone.

"Okay," Alec was saying. "Did you guys really just rescue us right out of the PRT prison elevator? Because that was _wicked._ " Hax, I noticed, wasn't saying anything at all. She seemed to be trying to fade into the background without talking.

I wasn't sure what to make of that, but before I could think too much, Tattletale spoke up, addressing the others. "Where is he?" She asked, frowning intently. "Where's Grue? Why wasn't he with you?"

Rather than answer, Rachel spat at the ground. She looked angrier than I had ever seen her, and that was saying a lot.

"What, you didn't hear?" The sarcasm in Alec's voice was palpable. "Figured they'd blast that all over the news. They offered a deal and he took it."

Tattletale was frowning. "A deal... oh... shit."

"What?" I looked back and forth. "Not all of us have thinker powers. What do you mean, a deal?"

"I mean," Alec retorted, "that he isn't one of us anymore. They gave him a choice, sit in prison or join them. He chose the latter.

"Grue's one of the Wards now."

 **5-07 – Taylor**

 _ **Saturday, April 16th, 2011**_

The mouse scrambled ahead of me, sprinting its way through the dingy, damp, leaf-filled gutter. The panicked creature was fleeing straight toward a small covered storm drain with an opening that was just wide enough to allow the thing to squeeze through and escape from the predator pursuing it.

The predator was me. My four legs pumped hard, my small furry paws propelling me forward through that debris-laden gutter like the world's smallest, cuddliest rocket on my way after that tiny mouse.

It came down to the wire. The mouse was less than a foot away from safety when my hindquarters gathered itself to leap. Sensing danger, the mouse hurled itself forward at the same time that my small cat-body left the ground. It flew toward the hole it had been racing for, while my paws stretched out toward the thing. My claws ached to yank it down, to tear into the succulent meat and gorge myself the way that nature had intended. The mouse was prey, and I was hungry. I would feed.

Someone nudged me in the side none-too-gently, and my vision jumped away from the famished cat at the last second before I saw whether the mouse would escape or not. Then it took me a couple of seconds to orient myself. Taylor. Not cat. Person. Human. I was a person and I was Taylor. I was me.

I was also lying in the middle of the Vegas sidewalk, and could feel the cement under my cheek. I was wearing normal clothes over the suit that allowed my body to move. Thanks to forward planning by Verduyn, the suit had some kind of internal cooling system that meant I could wear something else over it and not swelter too much from the heat.

My vision from within the eyes of the person who had nudged me showed that a small crowd had gathered to surround my fallen form. A crowd coming to see what had happened. Coming to gloat.

Before I consciously realized what I was doing, my body was moving. Anger filled my head, driving me to literally leap to my feet while I began to subconsciously categorize the potential threats.

There was a gasp from the gathered crowd, and before I could move again, a figure appeared through the peripheral vision of the person whose eyes I was seeing through. The familiar sight was enough to slow my brain's shift into full combat mode, and then it stopped completely when Elle stepped close enough to catch my raised hand. Instantly, the mounting fury drained out of me.

"Hello, Taylor," she said brightly, as if nothing was wrong. "I'm glad you came back." Then she just squeezed my hand and looked away, gazing off at nothing in particular. She didn't need me to say anything, or even do anything. Just standing there, apparently, was enough for the moment.

Meanwhile, the person whose eyes I was seeing this through had turned to face the crowd, so I couldn't see myself or Elle anymore. All I could do was hope that simply telling my body to remain standing would be enough to stop it from collapsing once again while I focused on trying to move my vision to a better angle. Clearly this suit wasn't enough to fix _all_ the problems with my power, even while I was actively using it. It was still too easy for me to lose sight of myself. And if I let my attention wander _too_ much, situations like this happened where my body would just fall down. That... could be awkward.

"Whoa, whoa!" the girl, Mockshow I realized belatedly, announced with her hands up to stop anyone else from coming forward. "See, told you she was just fine. Just needed a second." Clearly she was the one that had nudged me so hard, (actually, she'd probably kicked me, come to think of it) snapping me out of the mind of that cat that my attention had jumped into. It was coming back to me now. We had arrived in Las Vegas a couple of hours earlier after spending a couple days with Verduyn to make sure the suit was working properly, and managed to get ourselves checked into one of the local motels.

Then Gregor and Faultline had gone out to take care of some of the business that we had come to Las Vegas for. While they were gone Mockshow, Elle, Spitfire, Newter, and myself, had decided to go for a walk to see if we could find a good place to eat that wouldn't look at Newter too closely.

After all, if any place wasn't going to question someone's appearance, it was Vegas. Or at least, that's what both he and Mockshow had claimed. Spitfire had been interested in seeing the city anyway, so she didn't put up much of a fuss. Elle and I hadn't really objected either. She liked to be a part of the group and go along with what they did. For me it was another chance to get out and stretch my legs.

Stretch my legs. That was the part that I still couldn't believe. Every morning when I woke up, I had to re-convince myself that it hadn't been a dream. I could move. My body could get up and walk around.

Not all the time, of course. Faultline had been clear on that. I wasn't allowed to use the suit constantly. She had repeatedly stressed that this was a stopgap measure. She _wanted_ me to exercise my own body enough that I could work out how to actually move myself the right way without the aid of this tinker suit. Faultline didn't want me growing to be too dependent on the crutch, so I had to agree to leave it off at times and simply _try_ moving without it. Every evening she had been pushing me to go through my exercises. Without using the suit, I had to lift my arms and legs at steady intervals, trying various emotional and mental stimulation in order to find a way to decrease the time between my brain giving a command and my body carrying it out. Now that the suit had proven that there was nothing slow about my brain giving the command itself, and that the delay was in how long it took my body to listen to it, Faultline said that we had to find a way around that. Which, to her, meant repeatedly trying every possibility. She wanted me to make myself angry, to make myself sad, to hope, to despair, to feel anything and everything possible. Mostly, however, she just wanted me to keep trying.

Tonight, however, had been about spending time with my new team. Or most of them at least. So I had gone along with this idea of taking a walk on the Vegas strip to find something to eat.

The simple act of doing that, of walking down the sidewalk had been overwhelming. The gratitude that I felt toward both Faultline and Verduyn was beyond anything I could even try to explain. Thanks to them, I could walk slower or faster simply because _**I**_ chose to. I could turn my my head and point it toward at a particularly bright sign that my attention was on because _**I**_ chose to. Not that where my head was pointed had anything to do with what I was seeing, but I could still do it. I could put my arms out to either side and spin in a circle because _**I**_ chose to. I could stop walking and keep my attention on a cat chasing a mouse through the gutters because _**I**_ chose to.

And that, unfortunately, had been my mistake to make, apparently. The emotions that had been building in me with each step down this crowded Vegas sidewalk had boiled over when I looked at that cat. The next thing that I had known, I had **been** the cat. Just like the other times that my mind had jumped into other animals, it became hard to cling to the idea of who I actually was. The instincts and feelings of that hungry cat were so overwhelming that I hadn't stood a chance against it.

Apparently, without my mind to guide it, my body had dropped to the ground. And before the others could get me back to normal, this crowd had formed. Not out of maliciousness, the way my brain had instantly assumed, but some out of concern. And others were just rubbernecking, coming in to gawk at the show the same way that the students who had done nothing to stop the trio had acted. They hadn't technically been part of the abuse. Instead, they had simply stood by and watched. Some were afraid to draw the attention of Emma and her cronies, while others had clearly enjoyed the situation.

It was those memories, of the crowds of students who had stood around and done nothing but watch while Emma, Madison, and Sophia put me through hell, that had driven me to jump to my feet. I couldn't show weakness to those people, couldn't let them see an opening, or they'd... they'd...

Do nothing. I wasn't that person anymore. I wasn't that Taylor, and I never would be again. And this wasn't Winslow. I wasn't back in that hellhole. I was better now. I was with my team, with people who cared enough about me to provide this suit so I could control myself.

I wasn't helpless anymore. I would never allow myself to be _that kind_ of helpless again.

While I took all of that in, realizing what had happened, my vision jumped again. Instead of seeing through Mockshow's eyes, I was now seeing a wide-angle view where I could make out Emily and Newter convincing the crowd that there was nothing wrong. They used words like dehydrated and tourist, until the onlookers eventually moved on. In Vegas, there was no shortage of things to see.

Once we were clear, Emily gave one last look around before stepping over to where my body still stood. "Okay, now that that's over, are you really okay, Taylor?" She kept her voice low.

Elle, I noticed, was gazing off at nothing, her lips moving silently as if speaking to someone who wasn't there. She was still holding my hand, keeping herself centered at least that much, but most of her mind was elsewhere. Actually, considering I had no control over my eyes, I looked pretty much the same. The two of us were standing together, holding hands, but neither of us appeared to be paying any attention to what was going on around us. Elle's attention was split between this world and all of the others that she was connected to, and where my eyes happened to be had nothing to do with what I was personally looking at. For anyone else, it probably looked pretty unnerving and unnatural.

Feeling embarrassed, I lifted my right hand for yes. I was fine. Embarrassed, but fine. I was going to have to try even harder to keep control over myself, to keep my conscience where it belonged.

"Really gonna have to teach you sign language, dude." Mockshow announced from where she was standing with her arms folded. "This 'yes and no' twenty questions thing's gonna get old pretty fast."

"You seriously know sign language?" Newter, standing beside her, asked incredulously. He was bundled up in a long shirt, gloves, a beanie that covered his hair and the back of his head, and large sunglasses. His tail was hidden inside the baggy pants that he wore. It was still possible to tell that he looked quite different due to his orange skin, but it wasn't _quite_ as obvious as it might have been.

Scowling sidelong at the boy, Mockshow retorted, "Yeah, I know sign language. Here, this one means 'fuck off, I'm not some stupid little kid.'" She showed him her middle finger.

"Hey, stop it," Emily warned her. "He didn't say you were, Ol—Mock. Seriously, this whole staying under cover thing isn't going to last long if we have to keep using your codename, you know."

Mockshow gave her a look that was clearly disbelieving. "Yeah," she said dryly. "Clearly it's my preferred _name_ that's gonna draw the attention of everyone around us. Not the walking result of a sexual affair between a monkey and a traffic cone."

I felt the tension in me rising again. I wanted to tell them to knock it off. Stop fighting. Stop arguing. I couldn't take it. I didn't want my teammates to argue and insult each other. That led to.. bad things.

Instead of taking offense, however, and escalating things, Newter sputtered out a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a snort. "Traffic cone? I was totally going with the assumption that daddy spider-monkey fucked a pumpkin."

"Makes sense," Mockshow shot back at him, though her expression had turned from a scowl to a smirk that was clearly trying very hard not to be a smile. "There's some slutty pumpkins out there."

Emily looked back and forth between the pair, her hand raised before she slowly lowered it. Under her breath, the heavily-freckled girl muttered, "I will never understand you two."

Then she focused on me once more. "If you're really okay, we should keep going. Gregor texted while you were out. They're gonna meet us at the restaurant. Apparently things didn't go as planned.

That caught my attention, and I gave as quick of a nod as my suit would allow. I didn't know exactly what Faultline had been doing here in Vegas, but if something had gone wrong, I wanted to help.

After all, I had to start paying the woman back for everything she had done somehow.

* * *

Eventually, we reached the restaurant. The place was a dark hole in the wall sort of place located between a butchers shop and an antique store. The place hadn't looked like much from the outside. There were no windows to be seen, and hardly anything to indicate that it was even a restaurant at all aside from a single sign above the door with the name of the place (Calvin's) in simple lettering. The door itself looked like one that belonged to a house rather than a restaurant, with an old-fashioned knocker and everything.

Still, there were some seriously good smells coming from the inside, that grew even stronger once Mockshow yanked the door open and waved the rest of us on.

Oh god. Food. Among all the other glorious things this suit allowed me to do, it also meant that I could feed myself. Well, to an extent. It was still a little awkward, but my mouth tended to respond to food being pressed up against it, and now I could actually control that food. I had spent the last few meals eating far more than I ordinarily would have simply because of the sheer joy of being able to lift _my own fork and bring it to my mouth._

I really was excited by the tiniest, most seemingly inconsequential things.

Hearing the name Fitts, the waitress led us back through what still looked suspiciously like a rather large house with some heavy wooden tables and a few booths set up in it, through a doorway and to a corner where Faultline and Gregor were already waiting at a large table with a privacy curtain partially drawn. Both were in civilian clothes, obviously, though it made less of a difference in Gregor's case. Like Newter, he was pretty distinctive no matter how he dressed, and the best he could do was try to cover up as best as he could.

"Thank you," Faultline spoke to the waitress. "We'll be ready to order in about ten minutes."

Once the woman had walked off, Emily asked, "What's going on? Did you find the girl?"

Sighing, Faultli- **Melanie** gestured for everyone to take a seat at the large table. My attention jumped so that I was seeing through her eyes instead of my panoptic view, and I took a moment to awkwardly guide my body and Elle into a pair of seats from what was essentially the corner of the woman's eye. Though she didn't really seem to be paying attention, Elle easily let me guide her around.

"Girl?" Newter was asking while grabbing a menu. "What girl?"

"We have a lead on a young woman with... a marking that is similar to the symbol that you and I share," Gregor replied to him while tugging the privacy curtain closed the rest of the way.

The stylized U symbol, I realized belatedly. I'd seen it on Gregor's upper arm, and heard about the same small tattoo on Newter's chest. Neither of them had any idea where the mark had come from or what it meant, only that it held some connection to whatever had taken away their memories. And, most likely, to what had given then their powers while making them look so different.

I still didn't understand that. Why did some people end up with such altered appearances? Did _all_ of them that ended up that way lose their memories? Were the two directly connected? Did people whose powers mutated them so much automatically lose their memory because of that mutation? Or was someone doing this on purpose and then somehow **removing** those memories?

Faultline, apparently, was operating on the assumption of the latter. According to her and the others, they'd seen enough to indicate that something out there was trying to stop them from learning more.

"Really?" Newter perked up. "Another new girl, huh? So where is she?"

"That's where we ran into a problem," Melanie's gaze, which I was still seeing through, looked down the table toward me. "Taylor, can you put your vision on overwatch and raise your hand if anyone comes close enough to overhear what we're talking about?"

Right. I focused, wanting to make myself useful. I'd been practicing this a fair bit over the past week, and to my relief, I was able to push my vision out of Faultline and into the panoptic view that she wanted. Then I raised my hand in confirmation.

"Good," the woman nodded to me before continuing. "Okay, the girl we're looking for calls herself Shamrock. From what we know, she supposedly manipulates luck."

"No way any of the good gambling places would let her in then," Emily said with a shrug. "They've all got capes watching for that sort of thing. Couple of them wouldn't even let her past the door, and others would figure out what she was doing pretty fast."

"Unfortunately true," Faultline nodded. "Which is where our problem lies. Shamrock pushed her luck too far-"

Before she could say anything else, Mockshow piped up, "Pushed her _**luck**_? Come on, admit it, how long were you waiting to say that? Like, ever since you heard what her power was?"

After giving the girl a brief look, Faultline continued. "There are no more big casinos, not since capes came out of the woodwork. But there are smaller, more personal establishments for gambling. As Emily said, most of these are watched over by thinkers and other capes who notice if anything out of the ordinary happens. But they're also extremely harsh on people who manage to sneak by. They have to be, to discourage anyone else from trying."

"And one of those groups caught her," Newter said with a groan. "Is she still alive?"

"So far," Faultline acknowledged.

I felt a sinking sensation of guilt in my stomach. It was my fault. I was the reason we were late getting here. They had waited for me to be sure that the suit was working properly and so we'd gotten here too late to talk to this girl before she'd been caught. If anything happened to her because of that...

Faultline was still talking. "Apparently they want to make a very **big** example out of her tomorrow night. Which means we have that long."

"That long to what?" Mockshow asked.

Faultline's smile was grim. "That long to figure out a way to break that girl out of the custody of one of Las Vegas's primary cape mafias."

Gregor's voice rumbled, "The rest of them will not look kindly on such an action either. Protecting their gambling from interference is important to every group on the strip. Taking action to save this girl will draw the ire of all of them."

"We don't have a choice," Faultline said flatly. "The girl has the tattoo, but her appearance is unchanged as far as we can tell from pictures. That _might_ mean that she knows more about that symbol than we do. She might know everything. We **have** to get to her."

Oh good. At least I was getting my wish about paying back Faultline for everything she had done.

I just didn't expect 'piss off the combined Las Vegas crime families' to be the first thing on that particular list.

 **5-08 – Sophia**

 _ **Saturday, April 16th, 2011 (Same day as Taylor's arrival in Vegas)**_

A scream of frustration tore its way out of my mouth as I kicked the chair in my bedroom with enough force to send the thing crashing sideways into the open closet where it fell into a heap.

"God damn it!" I screamed again while grabbing the edge of my desk. Yanking it forward, I let the thing fall onto its side with a vaguely satisfying bang, followed by the cacophony of sound as every miscellaneous item that had been on it went crashing to the floor as well. "Fuck this shit!"

My foot lashed out again, kicking the top of the overturned desk three rapid times with enough force to very nearly knock a hole into it. I didn't care. The anger blinded me. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

A sound at the door drew my attention that way, and I saw Terry standing there staring at me with a disbelieving gaze. His mouth was open like a fish, the confusion and apprehension readily apparent. He thought I'd completely lost my mind. "What the hell are you doing, Soph?"

"Get out." I gave my brother the darkest glower I could manage. "Just get the hell out and leave me alone." When he hesitated, opening his mouth to say something else, I screamed, "I said get out!"

That was enough to make the older boy backpedal out of the doorway, and he stood in the hall shaking his head. "Sophia, look," Terry started. "If you're this upset about something, maybe you should-"

I crossed the room in two steps, caught hold of the door, and slammed it in his face. Fuck. I didn't need his advice. I didn't need anything except for the _fucking_ criminals to stay where they fucking belonged.

A _**Ward?!**_ They were turning Grue, the stupid god damn thug, into one of the Wards? They wanted him to be my teammate? They wanted us to work together?! Fuck that. Fuck Piggot. Fuck the PRT.

I could still imagine the smug little smirk on that Lady Pigs-A-Lot's face as the fat fucking bitch had informed me of what was going to happen. Shit, she had the nerve, the _**nerve**_ to compare us. Apparently the ugly bitch was dreaming of the PR boon successfully converting a former criminal would be.

He fit all the criteria they wanted too. His power didn't make him too hard to control. He hadn't committed any unforgivable crimes to drive the public against him. But he was a known criminal whose conversion to 'hero' would make for a really good story for the morons to eat up like candy.

Bullshit. This whole thing was complete _**fucking**_ bullshit! What the hell were we catching the bad guys for if they were just gonna slap a badge on them and call the cocksuckers heroes?

Recruiting Grue, seriously? It was like they didn't care what someone did. The only things they cared about were if they could use the person, and how the public perceived them. That's it.

But then, I'd already known that, hadn't I?

Shoving that thought away, I gave the overturned desk another frustrated kick before turning on my heel. I couldn't be here. Not right now, not feeling the way that I did. I needed to get out and do something, anything that would take my mind off of this fucking stupid situation.

Thankfully, there was already something I had been planning on doing this evening. Something that was bound to distract me from the brain-dead PRT and their asinine recruitment policies.

It was time to crash an Empire Eighty-Eight recruitment drive.

* * *

"Look at all those retards," the voice of Bryce came through the earbud with enough static that it would have been all but impossible to tell that it was him for anyone who didn't know.

I was going to have to ask him about that. Not to fix it, but to see if the boy had any way of _creating_ the same mechanical distortion and putting it in a speaker inside the mask that I was wearing. That way it would disguise my voice in case I ever had to talk to anyone who actually knew Shadow Stalker.

The trick was going to be explaining it in a way that didn't clue the kid into the fact that my real voice was already known to the Protectorate. Not that I expected too much objection. After all, from what I could tell, it didn't take much of an excuse for a tinker to want to build or improve their shit.

At the moment, I was in a warehouse on the very edge of Empire territory. Rather than risk being seen on the ground, however, I was sitting on a long, sturdy pipe that ran near the ceiling. I'd used the wall-clinging ability of the boots and gloves that Bryce had designed in order to get up here where it was too dark and out of the way for anyone below to notice my presence. That had actually been kind of cool, and I hadn't been able to stop myself from briefly imagining what I could accomplish if I used Bryce's equipment _**and**_ my own powers together at the same time. Shadow-form along with the ability to walk on walls and ceilings? God, the real bad guys would be pissing themselves.

But no, I had to keep my two lives separate. This, being Hinder, was a chance to really be _myself,_ without the fucking PRT peering over my shoulder to check on everything I did. Hinder didn't have Piggot using every excuse to bitch at her, even when I went out of my way to play by their rules!

Focus, Sophia. I had to remind myself to avoid dwelling too much on that bullshit. I needed to pay attention to what was happening right now, not what I wanted to do to Piggot's fat face.

The 'retards' that Bryce was pointing out were more than two dozen men and women that happened to be standing below me, on the main floor of the warehouse. Most were clearly dressed for a fight, and all of them were milling around the middle of the simple cement and brick room, mostly staying near a twenty-five-foot diameter circle that had been drawn on the floor with bright red chalk.

These would be the initiates, according to the man that I had interrogated the night before, after saving Aisha. Apparently the Empire was doing some heavy recruiting, but they would only take people who knew how to fight and could pull their weight. Those that really believed in the mission and could actually contribute to it. Which meant that in order to be allowed to join, you had to participate in these nightly tournaments. From the sound of things, each of the thirty people gathered here would fight someone else in the group. The winner of that fight got to join the Empire as a soldier, while the loser, assuming they survived, would get a free trip to the hospital emergency room.

Even being allowed to join the tournament took some doing, according to the guy who'd spilled his guts about the process. You had to prove you were worth the Empire's attention. Specifically, that you were worth Hookwolf's attention. That's why the jackass and his partner had gone after Aisha. They'd figured that if they kidnapped a little black girl and dragged her to Hookwolf, he'd let them in.

The son of a bitch was lucky I hadn't castrated him right there on the spot. Instead, I just kicked him a few times and left the pathetic fuck alongside his buddy for the PRT to pick up.

Now I was here, having snuck inside the warehouse more than an hour before the so-called tournament was supposed to begin. I'd hidden there out of sight and watched as some of the Empire goons came in to set things up. Though the urge to jump down there and kick their heads in had been almost overwhelming, I'd resisted. I wanted to see what was happened and who showed up. This could be a chance to nail some of the important creeps in the Empire instead of just a couple no-name thugs.

"I see them," I finally responded to Bryce in a low voice, barely a whisper in spite of being a good twenty feet above the racist shits. There was no sense taking chances. "You talking about the wannabes or the cannon fodder?" The last bit was added as I turned my attention to the eight or nine uniformed Empire soldiers who were standing apart from the fighters with clear looks of superiority. None of the important members of the Empire, particularly no capes, had actually shown up with. These were the no-name soldiers, the frontline thugs who worked the streets peddling their drugs and violence.

"All of them," Bryce responded flatly. "But mostly the fodder. You... you think any of these guys might be the one that killed Sierra?" His voice dropped toward the end, his attempt to hide the emotion in it.

I still doubted that we'd ever know who had fired the shot that killed his sister. It was too much of a random, inconsequential (to them) event. As important and devastating as it had been for the kid, to these animals it was incidental, of no more note than accidentally running over a squirrel in the street.

Instead of saying anything of the sort, I simply replied, "Only way to be sure we get the right guy is to get every last one of them. The whole Empire. This is just the start of it."

"Yeah, just the start. Fuck all of them. Every last fucking one of them." I could hear the anger in the boy's voice, the predatory need for vengeance. It didn't make me feel good, the way that sort of tone should have. I should have felt proud of the boy, for seeing how life really was and throwing himself into the task of getting revenge for his sister. But instead, I just felt... sort of...

"All right, you lazy sons of bitches! Get off your asses and pay attention, cuz I ain't gonna repeat myself!" My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a loud bellow from below. A heavy-set man, big in the way that nationally recognized wrestlers are, came striding into view. His shirtless upper torso glistened with sweat, and his tanned body was covered in Aryan pride tattoos.

Clearly, he was a real winner.

The man had reached the middle of the chalk circle by that point, as the crowd of wannabe gang members formed a semi-circle to watch. With his hands outstretched, he shouted, "You all know why you're here!" At those words, two small flames appeared in his palms.

Right, of course he was a cape. A pyrokinetic. Now I remembered the guy. He called himself Logi, and was new enough that I didn't know enough to guess what his limitations were. Either way, I was definitely going to have to take him down as soon as possible once I started dealing with these fucking losers.

The big guy was still shouting. "You're here because you want in on the ground floor of the revolution! You're here because you want to be a part of the **army** that's going to put the real power back where it belongs! The army that's going to light the way for the return of our proud heritage! The army whose footsteps will make the mongrel races cower!"

The crowd, inductee and full-blooded soldier alike, roared with approval. It was sickening, and I had the impulsive desire to punch each and every one of them in the face until I couldn't punch any more.

"But if you want to be a part of this army," Logi continued, "then you have to earn it! And you'll earn it the way all of our brethren have, the way that our proud forefathers showed their worthiness!"

Turning in a circle with his arms outstretched to indicate the makeshift ring around him, the man made the flames in his palms go up a good ten feet while his voice grew even louder, "In the ring!"

"When you take this asshole down," Bryce's voice urged in my ear. "Make him cry a little."

Still, I waited where I was, suppressing the urge to put a stop to this right then. Instead, I watched as the fighters were each assigned their opponent through random draw. A couple objected when their opponents were considerably larger, and were summarily tossed out by the big guy. Then the two who had been their opponents were paired against each other, and there were no more complaints.

Through the first couple of fights, I waited and watched. The first was between two roughly evenly matched guys. Both were decent boxers, and it mostly came down to luck and endurance for one of the men to finally stand triumphant over the one that had been his opponent. The fallen guy was dragged off, and the winner got to sit down in a provided chair to rest and watch the rest of the tournament.

Before the second fight could get under way, there was a bit of a commotion near the front of the warehouse. Eventually, a familiar figure wearing a metal wolf mask came striding into view, making my lip curl at the sight of him.

Hookwolf. He was the one I'd been waiting for, the reason that I hadn't made myself known to the gang down there yet. I'd been waiting for him to show up, because he was too powerful to risk having him show up right in the middle of the fight. I needed to know exactly where he was and drop him before he had a chance to shift into his alternate form with all the whirling blades.

Good, now he was here and I didn't have to suffer through any more of this farce. I'd show these assholes what one of the 'mongrels' could do to their ignorant fucking faces.

I was gathering myself to drop down when Hookwolf spoke up, calling over his shoulder. "Bring her in!"

Her? I blinked uncertainly and hesitated to see what was happening. As I watched, two of the uniformed Empire soldiers came dragging an unwilling, struggling figure in between them. Seeing the girl they were dragging in, I immediately. cursed under my breath

"Hey," Bryce spoke up again. "Isn't that the cute girl from last night?"

"Aisha," I muttered darkly. What the **hell** was she doing there? How had the Empire grabbed her?

Hookwolf spoke up as Aisha was dragged up beside the spot where he stood. Her wrists were bound behind her by plastic zipties. "This...thing... was found snooping around outside." There was amusement in his voice. "Apparently she wanted a closer look at what was happening in here. So I thought we could oblige her."

Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the hell? My mind raced. Okay, so the most logical conclusion was that Aisha hadn't actually gone away last night. She'd stuck around, listening to what the thug said for long enough to know where this place was and what was happening. She'd probably heard about my intention to come here as well. But why had _she_ come? What the fuck did she think she was doing?

The pyro, Logi, took a step that way. "Oh, we'll make sure she sees eeeeverything she needs to." His voice held a dangerous tone as he held his hand up. "And once she's seen enough, maybe I'll just burn her eyes right out of her sockets." A small, blowtorch-like flame appeared at the end of his finger. "You like that, niglet? Maybe the last thing you see can be the knife that's gonna cut you open."

"We'll let the best fighter tonight prove their worth by ending the girl," Hookwolf declared. "So get comfortable," he instructed Aisha as the men that were holding her tossed the girl to the cement floor with enough force to make her cry out since her cuffed hands meant she couldn't even try to catch herself. "Because no one's coming to help you."

"That's it," I wasn't going to sit here for any more of this. I was putting a stop to it **right fucking now.**

However, just as I was about to drop off of the pipe and make my way down there, I felt... dizzy. My eyes stared off at nothing, and I saw...

"Hinder! Hey, fuck, Hinder wake up! What the fuck, are you okay?"

The voice in my ear yanked at my attention, and I blinked my eyes open. Belatedly, I realized that I'd slumped sideways on the pipe and very nearly fell all the way off it. The voice in my ear was Bryce.

"What?" I managed, blinking away the disorientation.

"You fell over," he accused. "And-"

"Shut up," I ordered, staring down at the floor below. I wasn't the only one that had fallen over. Both Hookwolf and Logi were still picking themselves up off of the floor, while the men around them looked confused.

Aisha was still sitting where she had been, looking pretty much as dazed as I felt. Seeing her there, one of the Empire soldiers took a step that way with an angry shout, "What did you do to them, you little cunt?!" His hand lashed out with the metal baton that he was holding, clearly intent on bashing her face in before I could even finish collecting myself.

His blow never landed. Before it could, some... ridiculously small figure literally leapt _over_ Aisha from behind and crashed into the descending baton, knocking it from the man's hand while he recoiled in surprise. The air was filled with what I swore sounded like demonic cackling.

Deciding I was done being a spectator at that point, I let myself drop off of the pipe. Using the gloves on the nearby wall to slow my fall slightly, I slid down to the floor before sprinting that way.

The first man to notice me took an electric glove to the face, before the second one was kicked hard enough that he probably wouldn't be having children any time soon.

I kept running for a few more steps, then gathered myself and leapt as high as the boots would let me. The jump carried me a good nine or ten feet into the air. Not as good as when I used my power, but pretty decent in this case. I was high enough that Hookwolf, hearing my approach, didn't immediately see me when he whirled around.

I could see the man's changes beginning already, as his body started to produce the metal blades that would soon comprise his entire form. Before he could get that far, however, I dropped down right on top of him. My outstretched hands caught the jackass right on that metal mask that he wore, and I instantly triggered every last jolt of electricity I could coax out of these gloves.

With a bellow, Hookwolf dropped to the floor, twitching with me on top of him. I could smell the sizzle of burned flesh under his mask. The electricity had done a real number on him.

Meanwhile, that loud, distracting cackling continued. I rolled off Hookwolf and came to my feet in time to see most of the Empire soldiers and wannabes were already fleeing for the exits.

Then I saw Aisha. She was standing now, facing off against Logi. The plastic cuffs that had been on the girl's wrists had disappeared, and she was holding the knife that she'd taken from the guy last night.

The disparity in size between Aisha and Logi was only the _second_ strangest thing about that sight. The winners by a long margin in the weirdness ratio were the two tiny figures that were literally dancing around Aisha's feet.

These were clearly the sources of that loud cackling laughter. The things were only about seven or eight inches tall, and they looked like... well they looked like tiny demons. Or, I realized, maybe a bit like those gremlin creatures from that old movie. They had long, dog-like ears pointed sideways that were almost half as long as the creatures themselves were tall, and their arms nearly reached the floor.

One of the things looked like it was made out of same cement that comprised the floor that we were standing on. The second, meanwhile, looked metallic. The same metal that was in that curved blade that Aisha was holding. And as small as the creatures were, the three prone bodies of Empire soldiers lying around them were clear evidence that they weren't exactly helpless.

"What... the... fuck..." Logi stammered, staring at the creatures. They, in turn, pantomimed mooning him before cackling even louder and more uproariously.

Enraged by that, and finally noticing that Hookwolf was down, Logi let out a scream of anger while hurling a ball of fire straight at the laughing creatures.

Before it could strike them, Aisha shouted, "No!" Lunging forward, the girl put her hand out. Her arm began to glow a dull red color, just before the fireball struck her outstretched hand.

Rather than burn her, the ball of flame hovered there for a moment right where it had struck the girl's glowing hand. Before our eyes, the fire literally reshaped itself. First two small arms made out of burning flames popped out, followed by legs, and then those big ears.

A second later, the first two creatures, stone and metal, were joined by their new brother made of fire. All three started up with the laughter again, and danced around once in a quick circle before turning their attention to Logi. They stalked forward, muttering and chittering in some low, dangerous tones. It wasn't any sort of language that I recognized, but more like the noises of an animal.

Aisha was a cape. She'd triggered and now she could... what, make these little demon things out of anything she used her power on? Not just solid things either, since that fireball had been affected.

"Oh, fuck this," Logi announced. He started to bring his hands together, and I remembered what I'd heard about how he had escaped when Aegis and Gallant had had him cornered.

Knowing what was coming, I hurled myself, not at him but toward Aisha. I crashed into the girl and knocked her to the floor just as the man's deafening clap sent a scorching wave of blistering heat and blinding light through the entire room for several long seconds. The suit that Bryce had created protected me from most of it, and I tried to cover the other girl as well as I could after falling to the floor with her.

By the time the heat and light had faded, everyone else was gone. All of the Empire and wannabe Empire had fled. Logi had even dragged Hookwolf out with him. They had escaped, my entire purpose for coming here gone with them. We were alone there in the warehouse.

Well, alone that is, except for the eight-inch tall fire, cement, and metal demon-things that were standing there glowering at me when I opened my eyes.

Seeing their expressions, I quickly rolled off of Aisha and came to my feet. As soon as I was off of her, the other girl sat up, and the three creatures all clambered into her lap like excited puppies, clamoring for her attention. Even the one made of fire didn't seem to bother the girl at all.

Aisha, for her part, ran her hand over the tiny creatures before smiling. Her hand began to glow once more, and each of the little things vanished in a tiny puff of smoke after she touched it.

"What... were those things?" I managed to ask after another handful of seconds while the girl picked herself up off the floor.

"Those?" Aisha looked at me, clearly supremely proud of herself. "I dunno. I was just sort of... focusing and... then when I touch something, it turns into one of those things.

"I think I'll call them... Imps."

 **Interlude 5A – Canary**

 _ **September 6th, 2010. Boston.**_

Paige Mcabee was on top of the world as she all-but floated up the stairs of her apartment building. The energy and enthusiasm of the audience, _her_ audience, still filled her even hours after her latest gig had ended. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Paige wondered if this energy would ever fade at all. Was this what truly successful performers felt like? The happiness, the pure, unfiltered joy that came when she sang on that stage and saw everyone in the audience enraptured by her voice was incomparable. She and the audience had been connected through her music. The applause, their cheers and calls for more had made her want to sing until her throat bled, just to keep the energy going, just to maintain that connection for as long as possible. This was the life that she had wanted. This was why she had done everything that she had to get this far. It was why she worked so hard.

And now it was paying off. She didn't have a legitimate agent yet, but a couple had expressed interest, and were even talking very seriously about actual record deals. The venues that she had been performing in were consistently selling out, the tee shirts they'd printed up were flying off the tables, and lately it seemed like everyone in the city wanted to come and see the Canary sing live.

In short, everything was awesome. Even if Jackson had chosen to show up back stage right after she finished up so that he could start bitching **again** about how she owed him a piece of everything she was getting because he pushed her to start going on stage to begin with, it hadn't completely destroyed her mood. She'd just told her jackass of an ex to go fuck himself and moved on with her evening.

But that was almost five hours ago. At the moment, as she walked down the hallway to her quaint little apartment, Jackson was the furthest thing from Paige's mind. She was humming the notes of the latest song she'd been working on, trying to imagine the next words that would fit the melody she was going for. This new song was going to be the one that reallyput her name on map. She wasn't even half-finished with it, and she still knew it was going to be _the one._ The first agent who heard it was going to snap her up, she just knew it.

Still humming, she slid her key into the lock of her apartment and pushed the door open to step inside. All she wanted to do now was order Chinese and then take a long shower and then fall onto the couch for a couple hours to watch a movie once her dinner arrived.

Her hand moved to flick on the switch just inside the doorway after coming through. As usual, the light took a second or two to come to life, a problem in the electrical system that she wasn't going to have to deal with much longer considering the money she was already bringing in.

And then the light blazed on, and Paige found herself staring directly into the eyes of a masked woman standing at the opposite end of the short corridor that was her apartment's entranceway.

She jerked in surprise at the sight of the figure, mouth open to yelp. Before a sound could escape the young woman, however, a gloved hand covered her mouth from behind as a second person came through the still-open door behind her. That door was subsequently kicked closed behind the intruder.

Paige struggled, trying to jerk her head free long enough to scream. Because if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was use her voice. Her mind was racing, the adrenaline from her earlier happiness morphing into confused fear as she fought to let someone know that she was being attacked.

Belatedly, she realized that the figure she was being held by was male. As she bit down on the gloved hand, an actual chuckle came from the man. His voice was a low purr. "Trust me, girl, I bite harder than you do." This was followed the audible sound of teeth clanking together.

"Shhh, shhhh, shhh..." The masked woman who had been waiting in the apartment held a finger to her lips before coming forward. Belatedly, Paige noticed that the Caucasian woman, bizarrely, wore what could only be described as a sexy schoolgirl costume with a mask that covered the top half of her face and part of her raven-black hair. Her bust was rather generous, the costume very clearly designed to enhance that fact and draw the eye toward suitable distraction.

Once Paige's wide eyes were locked onto hers, the masked woman shook her head and offered her a stunning smile. "Don't scream, sexy girl. We're not here to hurt you. We're your new friends."

Okay, if there was anything in the world that would have had _less_ of a chance of convincing Paige to calm down than a woman who was dressed like that calling her a sexy girl while a man held her from behind and talked about biting, she really couldn't imagine what it might be.

However, before her mind could run too far away into a legitimate panic attack, the woman's eyes moved past her. "It's okay, Five. Don't be upset with the poor sweet girl. She's just scared. You can let her go." To Paige, she added. "The big boy's gonna let you go, okay? Then we're going to talk. I wasn't lying about not being here to hurt you. We'll only do that if you make us. Or if you scream. We're trying to help you, but our time _is_ limited, so play nice. Can you do that, Paige? Just listen to what we came to talk about. Trust me, it's something you'll want to hear."

In spite of herself, Paige hesitantly nodded as much as the hand holding her would allow. Her heart was pounding faster and harder than it ever had, and she was wondering just how her night had flipped from amazing to terrifying so quickly. What did these people _want?_ Who were they?

At an answering nod from the busty woman, the man (Five, apparently) released Paige and gave her a little push. She looked over her shoulder at him reflexively, finding a tall figure wearing red and gray leather with long albino-white hair exposed from the mask that covered his entire face save for his mouth. When she looked that way, he was showing his all-canine teeth to her.

"Make the girl play nice, Six," he demanded. "Or I might decide that I'm too hungry to wait."

"Wait... wait..." Paige stammered, eyes widening even further as her mind caught up and outran her denial. "Six... five... y-you're not, I mean, are you..." She stared first at the tall figure with the teeth, then to the all-but naked busty woman in front of her, a whine building in the back of her throat.

"That's okay, sweetie," Six purred. "You can say it. Go ahead. We're not Beetlejuice. And we're already here anyway, so you might as well say our name. Do it, prove you know who you're dealing with."

Swallowing audibly, Paige almost whispered it. "... Sins.." The fear she had felt earlier paled utterly compared to the terror this realization had brought on. Why? Why were two of the Seven Sins standing in her apartment? Six and Five, Lust and Gluttony, what did they **want** with her? Was she... was she..

"Oh babe, don't scream." Six's voice turned into a soft plea. "Please. If you scream, I can't stop Five from deciding he's hungry. So you kind of have a choice. You can talk to me, or you can be his meal."

At first, her voice wouldn't come. Paige's mouth opened, but no sound emerged. She felt like crying, but her body was in too much shock. Finally, she managed a weak, "T-talk with you..."

Six gave another model-perfect smile and stepped back. "Excellent. I knew you were the type to see reason, Paige. Come, let's take a seat on the couch where it's more comfortable. We don't have a _lot_ of time, but we do need to explain what's happening and I happen to believe that comfort is important when one's life is being turned permanently upside down."

That... didn't sound promising. Paige resisted the urge to scream, knowing how little good it would do her in that moment. It wasn't like the police would arrive soon enough to stop Gluttony from... from... she shuddered and moved faster, scooting to her own couch before perching on the very end of it.

"There we go. Now we're all nice and comfortable." Six sat down as well, while Five loomed in the background, cutting off any chance that Paige might have had to reach the door. "Well, us girls are anyway," the raven-haired woman added in a low voice. "Pretty sure you'd prefer he stay over there."

After Paige gave a near-frantic nod, Six continued. "Now, you want to know why we're here. So I'll tell you straight up, we are not here to kill you. Okay? That's not our purpose here. We're not here to hurt you, kill you, or do anything bad to you unless you really make us, all right? Do you understand?"

Gulping in spite of herself, Paige nodded once more. "Y-you're not here to hurt me."

"That's right, we're not here for that." Smiling encouragingly, Six reached a hand up. Before Paige could jerk back, the woman brushed her fingers over one of the feathers in her banana-yellow hair. "Mmm, these are so hot. Feathers in your hair? Are they real? Are they your feathers?"

"I-I... ummm..." Yes, they were. They had started growing in not that long ago. At first Paige had been terrified and cut them out. But eventually she had realized that no other changes were happening to her, so she let the feathers stay. Now they were a part of her appearance, and some people she had talked to had said that she might even start a trend. She said none of that however, only able to weakly bob her head up and down while trying not to whimper too loudly.

"Mmmm, you have style, Paige." Six murmured approvingly. "I like that. I really do. That's why we came to help you, pretty girl. That's why we won't let the mean old PRT arrest you."

Paige, who had already felt as though the world had dropped out from under her, just stared at the woman for several long, silent seconds. "I—I—what? The... the PRT? Why would they...?"

"Arrest you?" Six made a clucking noise of disapproval, her visible eyes behind the mask rolling conspiratorially. "Well, that would be for assaulting your ex-boyfriend, of course."

"What?!" In spite of herself, Paige blurted the word out loud. "I didn't assault him! I just told him to fuck off! Why—I mean, I didn't—wh-what?" Her stammer returned as she paled.

"Well, technically, you didn't tell him to fuck **off** ," Six corrected. "Though, you know, I kinda would have liked to hear what he would've done if you _had_. That might've stretched his creativity."

"Wh-what are you talking ab-about?" Paige shook her head. "I just said he should go fuck himself."

"Ah," Smiling broadly, Six pointed a perfectly manicured nail at her. "And that, babe, is just what he did. You told him to go and, as you put it, fuck himself. So he tried. He tried to fuck himself, and well, when he realized he wasn't physically capable of it..." She trailed off. "Let's just say he made himself physically capable of it."

Eyes widening in horror, Paige put her hand to her mouth. "Oh my god. Oh my god. I—I didn't... no, no I didn't mean to—that wasn't what I—no. No I didn't do that. I didn't mean for him to, that's not what I meant! That's not what I was trying to—I wasn't trying to—what?"

"Mmmmhmmm, unfortunately, the law doesn't exactly look kindly on that sort of thing." Six's voice had taken on a consoling tone. "So, you know, they're sort of printing out the arrest warrant as we speak. They'll be here soon to toss you right where they think you belong."

"But I didn't do anything!" Paige protested. "I wasn't trying to make him do anything! I was just—I mean, I didn't even know it could work like that! I wasn't trying to! He just—that's just—how did-"

"Shhh shhh shhh." Six shook her head. "It's too late for that, my sweet girl. Far too late. You know what they do to Masters who abuse their powers, don't you? They'll use you to set an example. They'll make a big case out of shoving the evil little cunt who used her mind control powers to make her ex mutilate himself. No three strikes for you, beautiful."

Leaning closer as Paige sat there rigid and terrified, Six whispered, "They'll send you to the Birdcage."

Shaking her head rapidly, Paige protested helplessly. "But I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"

"They don't care about accidents, sweet little bird," Six assured her. "They want results. And the best results they can get in your situation is to throw you in a deep dark hole and neeeever let you out." She reached up to touch the panicking young woman under the chin. "But that's why we're here, babe."

"Wh-why you're... here?" Paige didn't understand. "W-what do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"Like I said, my peach," Six purred the words. "We're going to help you. Because you could be oh so useful." She murmured as though in pleasure just from speaking. "Oh yes, yes you could. You did all that without even meaning to. Imagine how useful you could be if you had the proper... instruction."

Swallowing the thick lump in her throat, Paige felt tears try to fill her eyes again but blinked them away. Now wasn't the time to cry, no matter how much she wanted to. "Y-you mean go with you?"

"Mmmhmm," Six nodded. "Come with us, Paige. You'll learn to like the stuff we do. I know it seems scary and nasty now, but in time you'll get used to it. Believe me, One is... very interested in meeting you. He's taken a deep personal interest in your ability ever since Four told him what you could do.

"You won't actually be one of us, of course. We're all full up. One through Seven. But you shouldn't underestimate just how useful being one of our friends can be for you."

The busty woman shrugged then. "And if you ask me, Seven's really pushing her luck. Play your cards right, and you might take her slot." Her head tilted curiously. "How are you at being angry?"

Before Paige could even try to think up a response to that, her mind still reeling in shock, Five moved away from the door. "Out of time," he announced while stepping over to the window to look outside.

"Whoops, maybe we took too long." Six stood, tugging a reluctant Paige after her. Together, they moved to the window. Below was the alley, but she could see the front lot in the distance. Two police cruisers and a PRT containment van had parked directly in front of the entrance to the building. A handful of officers along with PRT men in full riot gear with their foam cannons were rushing to the doors.

"No more time, babe," Six shook her head sadly while stepping away from the window. "They're on their way up. Five, would you mind?" She waited until the big man with the white hair moved to the door and stepped out before turning her attention back to Paige. "Okay, sweet little bird, he's gonna deal with those guys. But there's more coming. So it's time to go, all right? Time to get out of here."

In that moment, Paige realized that she wasn't really being given a choice. Sure, the two Sins wanted her to come with them willingly. But if she refused, they weren't going to just give up. They would force the issue. They would take her no matter what she said or did.

Five, Gluttony, would kill the police coming to arrest her. Then he and Six would make certain that she came with them. And when that happened... she had heard about the things that happened to the 'helpers' that the Sins collected. She knew what these monsters did to them. Everyone did.

The Sins did not take no for an answer.

She was trapped. She was terrified. She had nowhere to go and nowhere to turn.

So Paige did the only thing she could think to do in that moment. As her fear threatened to trample everything in its path, she pivoted toward the nearby counter top. Her hands moved, grabbing the vase full of pretty flowers that sat there. In the same motion, she continued turning and _hurled_ the vase.

Six actually ducked slightly, obviously a reflexive action. But the vase wasn't flying at her. Instead, it had been thrown in the opposite direction. It smashed through the window with a terrifying crash that sent glass everywhere.

In the next instant, Paige had thrown herself through the shattered window. She felt the sharp sting of glass cut her arm in a couple of places, but made it through. Then she plummeted straight down.

After what seemed like centuries, she landed hard in the middle of the open dumpster, feeling the bags of rotting food and paper supplies crack open under her weight while the air rushed out of her from the impact. Oww. Oww. That hurt. It hurt a lot, actually. It wasn't at all like the movies made it look.

Still, it was better than being up there. Paige remembered why she had jumped in the first place, and scrambled out of the dumpster as quickly as she could, almost falling in the process.

"Babe!" Six called from above. "Don't hide! We'll find yoooou!"

No. No, no no. They were after her. They wouldn't stop. They wanted her for something, and the Sins always got what they wanted. They always got what they wanted, eventually. Without looking up, Paige turned on her heel and ran out of the alley.

Reaching the PRT van, she found it empty. The authorities had all gone upstairs. Yet even as she started to turn away from the vehicle, an image on the computer screen within drew her attention.

Her. It was her face from one of her publicity photos. As Paige stared at that, the voice on the radio made it through the closed window.

"Repeat, at least one of the super villains known as the Seven Sins are here. No, make that two. Two Sins are here. Two sins. All units be advised, suspect Paige Mcabee is working in relation with the Seven Sins gang. Suspect Paige Mcabee, aka Canary, is working in relation with the Seven Sins gang. Approach with extreme caution. Do not allow her to speak. Reinforcements are incoming."

"No..." Paige's mouth worked in shock as she took a step back. "I'm not... I'm not!" She shouted at the van, as if that would change anything.

For a second, she just stood there and stared at her own face on that computer screen. The heading changed while she was watching it, showing her as a 'known associate' of the Seven Sins.

The sound of gunshots inside her apartment building shocked Paige out of her frozen state. She jumped, looked over her shoulder, and then back toward the van.

No, no, no. How? How could this happen so fast? How could this happen at all? The Sins, they wanted her for some reason. The police wanted her. And now the police thought she was already working with the Sins. And they weren't going to listen. They wouldn't even let her talk. They wouldn't let her explain her side of the story. And even if she did explain it, they'd still throw her in prison because of what happened to Jackson. They wouldn't listen. They've never listen. And the Sins, they'd come after her no matter where she went. She couldn't get help. She couldn't... she couldn't do anything.

Nothing, that was, except for one single thing.

Paige turned on her heel... and ran away into the night. The sound of her footsteps was drowned away against the sirens that approached. And her shadow, cast against the nearby buildings by the lights of the city, stretched to follow her fading form before breaking down, becoming just another spot of darkness in the city.

And like her shadow, Paige Mcabee disappeared.

* * *

 _ **Saturday, April 16th, 2011 (Same day as Sophia's confrontation with the Empire).**_

The door handle of the gas station bathroom jiggled for a moment before it was shoved open. The burly trucker forced his way in, only to stop short as he found himself staring into the barrel of a Beretta M9 semi-automatic pistol. "Heeey girl, thought you might wa-Whoa-whoa!" He held both hands up, eyes wide.

Paige, hair dyed a dark brown color and cut short (she had returned to cutting the far too identifiable feathers from her hair whenever they showed up), held the gun with practiced ease by this point. After being on the run from both the Sins and the authorities for the past seven months, she had picked up a few things. The gun no longer shook in her hand as she pointed it, and she had snatched it out of its place on her hip the instant the doorknob had started to turn.

"Back off," she told the man flatly. "Occupied."

The man's eyes never left the barrel. His forehead was sweating. "Right, right. Occupied. Got it. I ahh, I just thought you might need a little help."

"I know what you wanted," Paige told him, her voice dark. "Not happening. Now get out."

Slowly, the man eased his way back out of the bathroom. Paige waited until he was gone and she could hear his footsteps leaving over the gravel before letting out a breath. She returned the pistol to its holster and let the ratty old army coat that she wore fall back into place over it.

For a few seconds, she just stood there, staring at herself in the mirror. Seven months. She had been running from both villains and heroes for seven months now. They never left her alone for long. She could never stay anywhere long enough to really catch her breath, and no one she had tried to talk to ever believed her or let her explain her side of the story. Her life was running. Her life was surviving from one day to the next.

Sighing, Paige plucked the black backpack off of the floor and shrugged it onto her shoulder. She stepped out of the bathroom cautiously, just in case, but there were no surprises. After looking around one more time, she started to walk across the lot.

Paige walked for twenty minutes, abandoning the station to move along the side of the road. A couple of cars slowed, but she waved them off. She wanted to walk. It let her think. And she didn't feel like trying to be alert for tricks and psychopaths at the moment. She just wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

Eventually, her eyes glanced up to see the sign that welcomed her to the newest city in her winding travels.

"Brockton Bay?" Paige spoke aloud to no one while looking at the sign. Then the girl shrugged. She had no idea what was waiting for her in the city, but continued anyway.

After all, what was ahead of her couldn't possibly be as bad as the danger that was nipping at her heels.

 **Interlude 5B – Myriad**

 _ **Saturday, April 16th, 2011 (Same day as Taylor's arrival in Vegas, Sophia vs the Empire, & Canary's arrival in BB) **_

As the last of the daylight faded from the living room of the house that the Travelers had rented for the duration of their stay in Brockton bay, Marissa Newland sat as still and motionless as possible on the atrociously lime-colored couch that had come as part of the provided furnishings in the house. She didn't want reach for the nearby light switch for fear of disturbing the figure who lay slumped against her side, drooling very slightly against Marissa's black sweatshirt. Even using her power to create a duplicate to flip on the light would have required that she move a bit.

Besides, she honestly didn't care about the light enough to flip it on. Sitting here in the dark didn't bother her. Nor did the presence of the brown-haired girl who lay against her, drool and all.

But then, that wasn't completely true, was it? While the presence of Noelle Meinhardt had never exactly _bothered_ Marissa, she was affected by it. Affected in ways that she didn't dare speak of aloud, for fear of ruining the friendship that the two of them had had for so many years.

Noelle didn't think about her that way. She didn't think about any girls that way. She did know, of course, that Marissa did, though Noelle had clearly never actually put two and two together to work out exactly how the other girl felt about her. That, obviously, was a result of the personal issues that Noelle herself was still working through. It was her lack of self-confidence, the low belief in her own worth.

She'd gotten better over the past couple of years. Leading the Travelers after they had been stranded here in this world, guiding them into being an actual team, Marissa had seen how much good it had done for Noelle's psyche. Yet even now, the girl's issues had clearly evaporated her ability to recognize when anyone found her attractive, let alone a girl she had spent so much time around as friends.

And how could Marissa explain it? How could she tell one of her best friends that she thought about her that way, without fundamentally _changing_ the dynamic of their friendship? How could she say that there were times when she wished... without hurting Noelle's feelings and making her question everything? Yet not doing so, not telling the truth to the girl that meant so much to her, there was a dishonesty and unfairness there that made the gold-skinned girl feel sick in the pit of her stomach.

Ever since she had taken the vial, a move born of desperation to save Oliver from Cody's rampage, Marissa had wondered why her powers had turned out the way that they had. Was it a product of the vial itself, or **her**? With the golden metallic skin, she was even more of a trophy than her mother had tried so hard to turn her into. Her mom, the woman who had bounced Marissa through every conceivable sport and activity in the book, looking for something that her daughter was the _best_ at.

Because that was all that mattered, being number one. Never mind which of the activities Marissa actually liked, or all of the ones that she was pretty good at. She was always, at best, number two. She was second or third best at most things she worked at, which in her mother's mind, was failure. She didn't want someone who was a runner-up. She wanted the champion, the gold medal.

Now Marissa was literally made of gold metal. She was strong enough to bench press a small sedan. And with her duplication ability, she could literally try every activity her mother ever wanted.

Would her mom be happy with her this way? If she ever made it back home, back to her real life, how would her mother feel about having a daughter that looked like this?

As usual, before Marissa could even begin to come to any conclusions about her life or choices, interruption came. This time, it appeared in the form of the doorbell going off.

The loud tone of the bell was met almost immediately by the sound of feet tromping in from the back of the house where the rest of the team had been setting up the computers. Luke, in the lead, flipped on the light as he entered the living room. Speaking without glancing toward Noelle and Marissa on his way to the door, he asked, "What're you guys just sitting here in the dark for?"

"Uggnn..." Noelle shifted and straightened, blinking a few times against the sudden light while blearily looking around. Seeing Marissa, she asked, "Did I fall asleep?"

"For a little while," Marissa answered with a tiny smile. "Don't worry about it."

By that point, Krouse, Oliver, and Jess had arrived as well. The latter swung her wheelchair up next to one of the recliners before levering herself into it. "Everything okay?" She focused on Marissa.

Shrugging, Mars replied, "Sure, how's the set-up going? Sorry I left you back there with the boys."

"Eh," Jess winked. "I can handle them. If they misbehave too much, I'll just put them in time-out."

Taking the seat next to Jess, Krouse eyed Noelle for a moment. Marissa knew that look. He still wasn't happy that Noelle had broken up with him shortly after they arrived. But he hadn't pushed the issue after Noelle had said that she needed to focus on taking care of the team and getting them through this rather than focusing on their relationship. He'd wanted to, Marissa knew, but recognized the futility.

Before Noelle noticed the look, Krouse turned his attention to Jess. "You know, spending time in a custom-made, better than virtual reality fantasy simulation isn't much of a deterrent."

Jess inclined her head with a slight smirk. "I'll stick you in the dungeon I've been making for the palace. You can tell me if it's as escape-proof as I think it is. You know, after a couple days or so."

"Okay then," Krouse was spared an answer by Luke closing the door and turning with a pile of pizza boxes in his arms that he had just taken from the delivery boy. "Let's eat." He pulled the top box off of the stack. Peeking in, he made a visible face at the contents. "Marissa's. Definitely Marissa's." Holding the box at arms length, he crossed the room with it.

Rolling her eyes, Marissa took the offered box without rising from her spot on the couch. "It's just pizza, Luke. You're acting like its the one that's going to eat you instead of the other way around."

Letting go of the box as if he couldn't wait to be rid of it, the young man shook his head. "For the record, that thing eating me is _far_ likelier than me actually willingly putting it in my mouth." For added emphasis, he shuddered openly before moving to grab another of the boxes to distribute.

"Baby," Mars retorted before sitting back against the ugly green couch. "It's pastrami, pickles, and mustard. You like all of those things. You like them _together_ on a sandwich."

Handing another of the pizza boxes to Krouse and Jess, Luke nodded. "Sure, on a sandwich. That's good. Putting them together on top of a pizza is just **weird**." Turning back to her, he added pointedly, "I like mashed potatoes and gravy too, but I wouldn't stick those on top of pizza either. "

Shrugging, Mars scooted up on the couch to tuck her gold-metallic legs underneath herself before placing the pizza box on the table nearby. "Your loss." Selecting a slice, she took as large a bite as she could manage, closing her eyes with a murmur of enjoyment at the taste.

Luke handed another of the pizzas to Noelle, who had shifted up to sit beside Mars while watching this discussion with a smile. Then he paused and looked toward the golden girl. "Wait, you were talking about _that_ pizza, right? You haven't seriously tried that mashed potatoes and gravy one."

Rather than answer, Marissa simply smiled mysteriously at the boy for a few seconds and was rewarded when he blanched visibly. Chuckling, she took another bite of her pastrami, pickles, and mustard slice. "At least I don't have to worry about you stealing my food, Jock-boy."

Shaking her head while taking a small slice of cheese pizza, Noelle chose that moment to speak up. "Okay, okay. Let's talk about what we know so far. Oliver?" She nodded toward the boy in question.

The final member of their group, who may have lacked powers but was as involved with their work as possible, stood in front of a white board on an easel. "Ready," the unassuming looking boy announced.

"Right," Noelle waited for Luke to sit down in a chair opposite the ones that Jess and Krouse were using. "Brockton Bay." She took another bite of pizza while waiting for Oliver to write the city's name across the top of the board. "How many groups are we dealing with, Jess?"

"One major hero team other than the Protectorate and Wards," the other girl spoke up. "That's the Brockton Bay Brigade. Other than that, there's a few working solo and one that's kind of... borderline."

Marissa frowned, unsure of what Jess could mean by that. "Borderline?"

"They call themselves the Faithful," Jess explained. "I'll get to them in a minute. Right now, we should start with the three primary candidates for Dinah Alcott's kidnapping: the Empire Eighty-Eight, the Archer's Bridge Merchants, and the ABB." Belatedly, she added, "Azn Bad Boys. We should start with them."

"Seriously?" Krouse shook his head. "Azn Bad Boys? Our name may be a bit on the nose, but that's just dumb."

"We'll make sure to pass along your criticisms," Jess assured him dryly. By that point, Oliver had written each of the team names down on the board, with a fair bit of space between each.

Marissa and the others ate their pizza while going over everything that they knew about the teams in Brockton Bay, and the most likely candidates for Dinah's abduction.

She hoped this would be a quick, easy job. The last one had taken several months to complete, and Marissa was afraid that this little girl didn't have that kind of time. Even if there was no way for _her_ and the others to go home, they could at least make sure Dinah Alcott did.

* * *

Several hours later, after midnight had long since come and gone, Marissa walked along the empty streets of this new city. She wore a sweatshirt with the hood up to cover her golden hair and a bit of her face, along with a baseball cap with the brim tugged low and a pair of sunglasses. It wasn't enough to completely cover her metallic skin. But the only thing capable of doing that would have been a ski mask, and that had its own unfortunate connotations when walking through the city, cape or not.

The others were asleep. She knew that for a fact since another version of herself was standing guard over the house just to make sure nothing went wrong. Of course, no one _should_ know where they lived yet, or have any particular issue with their presence. But it was better safe than sorry, and so the other her would sit up all night to keep an eye on things.

It wasn't as if she needed sleep in any case. None of Marissa's selves ever did, though leaving them separate for longer than a few hours was a strain. She never got tired, and from what she could tell, her body hadn't actually aged at all in the time since she'd taken that vial to stop Cody from killing Oliver.

Was she going to be like this forever? Would she be this golden trophy girl for the rest of her life? And how long would that be if she never aged? Until something horrible happened to her?

That was the problem. It wasn't just that she didn't sleep, it was that she _**couldn't**_ sleep, in fact. She'd tried everything just to turn her brain off. And yet nothing worked. She was inevitably left with six to eight hours every day when everyone else was asleep, leaving her alone with nothing but her thoughts.

So she went for walks. Or one of herselves did in any case. Which helped when they recombined and she was given the memories that all of her separate selves had experienced.

Seeing an all-night grocery store up ahead, Marissa strolled that way and passed through the open doors and walked toward the back without looking at anyone, trying not to attract attention. She just wanted to get in and out without any kind of scene. The self-checkout stands meant that she might be able to do this without coming face to face with someone who would inevitably ask if she was Scion's daughter, or his older cousin who was trapped in suspended animation until after he had outgrown her.

People had weird imaginations.

Krouse had tried repeatedly in other cities to tell her that going out on these walks of hers was a bad idea. He'd said that he wasn't trying to be a dick, but that her appearance made them all vulnerable because of how easy it was to link her to the others in their civilian identities if anyone just happened to spot Marissa and trail her back to wherever they were staying.

The shit part was that he wasn't really wrong. Marissa knew that it was dangerous. But she couldn't sit around cooped up all the time. She just... couldn't. She was careful, and she always made sure, to the best of her ability, that she wasn't being watched or followed. Yet it was still a risk.

Maybe it was too much of one. Maybe she should just accept that she couldn't allow herself to be seen outside of her costumed identity, and stay holed up the way Krouse wanted her to. He could be blunt and a bit of an ass, but he wasn't completely wrong. She was putting the others at risk for her own comfort, just because _she_ wanted to get out and move around by herself. It wasn't fair to them.

Not that Krouse's worry was entirely altruistic, she knew. He was afraid that the grudge Cody still held against him was strong enough for the boy to convince his new 'friends' to go out of their way tracking them down. And if that happened, even Krouse wasn't arrogant enough to think that he could handle them.

But then, he would have had to have been really stupid not to be worried about a group that called themselves the Slaughterhouse Nine.

As she ran her gloved hand along the row of soft drinks that were available in the cooler section of the store, Marissa's musings were interrupted by what sounded like a gunshot. Head jerking up and around reflexively, she was already taking a step when a second gunshot came.

Abandoning both her search for a beverage and her hope for an uneventful night, Marissa jogged out of the aisle and looked toward the source of the disturbance. Her gaze found a single security guard lying on the floor next to the registers, bleeding from his stomach. A figure was running away, already exiting the store through the open doors while the girl who had been watching over the checkout stands curled up on the floor and screeched in blind terror.

"Fuck," Myriad was already working on splitting into duplicates. One of herselves ran to check on the girl to make sure she wasn't hurt, while the other went to see what she could do for the injured security guard, and to call for emergency assistance.

Meanwhile, the 'main' Myriad (so far as she could tell anyway), went running out of the store after the shooter. She hit the entrance and looked around briefly before spotting the figure sprinting past a carwash on the other end of the parking lot. He was pretty fast.

She was faster, and she could run longer. Pushing herself into a sprint, Marissa tore after the figure.

The man looked back as she closed the distance. Seeing Myriad, he brought up his gun and fired off three rounds. One blew the sunglasses away from her face, while the other two were enough to knock her hood away.

Faced with the realization that he wasn't shooting at a normal person, the figure panicked and spun around to flee. He vanished into the car wash itself, and Marissa pushed herself to run faster.

There was no need. The man came stumbling back out of the car wash a second later, falling onto his backside with a scream of surprise.

"Aww," an unexpected voice spoke up as a female figure emerged from the carwash as well. Her form was lithe and athletic, and the elegant costume that she wore made her status as a cape very clear. Marissa could make out jade pants with silver runic designs, while the top was silver body armor with wispy green cloud-like lines across the chest that rose into the symbol of a female figure wielding a sword. A sword not unlike the rapier that the actual woman herself was holding.

"Now is that any way to greet one of your bestest best friends?" The woman asked the man.

"W-we, we ain't... friends though..." The man spoke in shaky confusion.

"We're not?" The woman sounded confused. "That's weird, because I'm pretty sure us being really good friends is the only way you could possibly have thought that my saying 'if I see you again, I'll kill you' was a joke."

"I'm trying!" The man blurted. "Why do you think I was grabbing that money pouch, huh?! To get money and get the fuck out of this hellhole, you crazy bitch!"

Spotting Myriad then, he rolled over and tried to throw himself at her. "Fuck, yes! Get me away from this cunt!"

Unfortunately for him, the woman made a sharp gesture with her hand. A puddle from the carwash rose into the air, sharpening itself into the shape of an icicle. Realizing what was about to happen, Marissa hurled herself that way, putting her body between the two with a shout.

It didn't matter. The floating water turned metallic and threw itself forward. It went _around_ Myriad and straight into the man, who gave a sharp scream of protest as he was impaled.

Eyes wide, Marissa split herself once again. Her extra self moved to help the man, while she kept moving forward with her fist raised to deck the costumed woman.

Then... she stopped. Both of herselves froze abruptly. Marissa felt some impossibly strong force holding her locked in place, her fist raised and ready to swing. In her peripheral vision, she could see her other self kneeling there frozen as well as she knelt over the injured man.

"Whoa." The costumed woman announced in clear surprise. "Wait, that actually worked?" Slowly, cautiously, she took a step closer with her hands raised outward.

What... what was happening? Marissa's mind raced in a wild panic. Why couldn't she _**move**_?! Why couldn't she do anything? She was trapped, paralyzed in place, as frozen as a statue.

Stepping in closer, the other woman slowly lowered one hand, and both of Marissa's arms lowered to her sides.

"Wow," the woman spoke again. "You're... you're that golden bounty hunter, aren't you? Uhh, Myriad. Yeah, that's definitely you." She paused for a second before clearing her throat. "This is inappropriate for more ways than you can imagine, but I have to say, you look far more attractive in person."

The record screech inside Marissa's mind must have almost been audible. And her frozen face must still have betrayed some reaction, because the woman chuckled. "Right, sorry. You can call me Iron Rain. I don't have any problem with you. But this son of a bitch," she gestured past the second Myriad to the injured man. "Well, let's just say if you knew the kind of stuff he's done in the past, you wouldn't mind leaving him here to bleed out."

Clearly noticing that both of the frozen Myriads were straining to talk, Iron Rain held up her hand once more. "Hold on, I haven't... I've never been able to control a person before. I guess you count as close enough to metal. Let me see... there, I think you should be able to talk."

Working her stiff mouth, Marissa forced the words out past a throat that didn't want to cooperate. "He deserves a trial."

"What he deserves is a shallow grave," Iron Rain retorted flatly. "I warned him. You want to hear about the kids he's gotten addicted to drugs, Rose? How about just one of the boys who died last week of an overdose? Want to hear about him? He belongs in the ground."

"He..." Marissa still had to work to make the words come out past the control that Iron Rain was exerting over her. "... deserves... a trial. Court... judge... jury..."

"I'm not that kind of cape." Iron Rain shook her head, her expression hidden behind the silver helmet with its crown-like top, black eye lenses, and green lines where her mouth was. "I don't deal with the police. I get things done. My way."

Still, she hesitated before letting out a breath. "Fuck, I'm going soft. I'll tell you what, I'll let you get the guy some help so he can be arrested and all that boring shit, if you do one thing for me."

"What?" Marissa was confused and a little bit nervous about what this woman wanted.

"Tell me your phone number," Iron Rain lifted both shoulders in a shrug. "Your real phone number. One that only you look at."

Even more flummoxed, Marissa could only ask blankly, "... why?"

Again, the woman shrugged. "That's the deal. I'll let you and... well, the other you go so you can deal with this situation. I just want your phone number. Nothing horrible, I promise. Well, nothing more horrible than a few late night texts when you might not expect it. And I tend to take pictures of my cats. Might share those. So what'll it be?"

The groan of the man on the ground was all the impetus that Marissa needed to get past her confusion. She recited the phone number for her most recent private cell to the woman, who nodded along with it.

"Got it," Iron Rain gave her a thumbs up. "All right, I'm going to leave now. As soon as I'm out of range, you'll be able to move again. I ahh, trust that you can handle this."

She started to leave, and something made Marissa ask, "Aren't... you going to make... sure it works?"

The woman just shook her head. "Why bother? If you lied, you're the one who has to miss out on quite frankly _adorable_ cat pictures. And that would just suck for you all around." Giving a quick salute after that, Iron Rain turned on her heel and ran back through the car wash and out of sight.

An instant later, Marissa felt the grip holding her body frozen relent, and almost collapsed. The other her was already grabbing for the phone to call 911.

Hearing her other self talking to the emergency operator, Marissa just stood there for a moment, staring after the woman who had disappeared.

"... But... why did she want my number?"

 **Interlude 5C – Four/Envy**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

Standing in front of a solid steel door in a dimly lit hallway, the woman paused for a moment to look at the monitor beside the door. The screen showed what lay beyond, the small room room that she was about to enter. A room with a single, special occupant.

Only once she was satisfied that their security measures were holding up did the woman enter the code into the pad beside the door that would turn off the alarm. After the beep of acknowledgment came, she hit three more buttons and the door slid open with an audible hiss, granting her access.

The room beyond the door was wet, and lit even more dimly than the hall. A steady spray of water continually fell from several sprinklers that were in turn protected by bulletproof, flame-resistant shields. Puddles had formed in the soaked cement floor in several places, though the grates strategically placed throughout the small room helped keep them under control. The walls were drenched as well, the sprinklers purposefully positioned so that no part of the room had any chance to dry out. And in the lower corners of the room, small nozzles billowed a constant stream of wet mist into the air.

In this middle of this room, a figure hung suspended by her wrists with chains that were in turn attached to the ceiling. The chains were strong enough to resist the efforts of most low brutes, and this woman was no brute. The scars from cigarettes that formed a row on both cheeks proved her lack of superior durability or healing. She hung there, soaked by the sprinklers and unable to help her shivers.

"You... y-you think... this'll stop them from g-getting me back?" The brown-haired girl's teeth chattered a bit as she spoke. Lifting her head, she stared at the woman in the doorway. "You think thi-this'll stop Jack from cutting your throat ear to ear, o-or telling the S-s-siberian to pop your head like a grape?"

When the woman said nothing at first, the chained figure squinted. "Y-you think I wouldn't have left them a long time ago if it was th-this easy to get away? They wo-wouldn't let me leave if I tried. Tha-that's not how it works. That's not how the Slaughterhouse Nine work."

"We know how they work, Mimi." The woman finally spoke for the first time, easing her way into the cell so that the water could fall on her. "Or do you prefer Burnscar these days?" She waited, but when no response came, continued with a slight shrug. "We've studied the Nine... thoroughly. Do you think that you're the first of them that we've captured?" After shaking her head, she smiled. "We take one of theirs, they take one of ours. It's a game we play. Some take it more seriously than others."

It took the suspended, soaked Burnscar a few seconds to respond. "Fuck. Y-you guys? Right, right. Jack talked about you jealous shits. We go and pl-play somewhere, then your lot show up to fuck with us. Some stupid fucking grudge that you c-cocksucks can't let go, right?"

"Sprinklers off," the woman waited until the computer complied, then shook her hair out a bit. "There, now we can talk. Do you know who I am, Mimi?"

Shaking her own head back and forth so that her soaked hair flipped around, Burnscar blew out a long breath. "You haven't tried to make out w-with me yet, so probably not the sex one. Fuck, you're that Envy, right? What was it, Three? Fucking stupid sh-shit, why use the numbers too?"

"Four," Envy corrected casually. "I assure you, if you were having this conversation with Three, you'd enjoy it much less. Sloth can be very... overbearing. I'd hate to see what would become of you if we had to resort to that, Mimi. Though that would not be as harsh as your fate should we allow Seven to have her way. Dearest Wrath has a tendency to break every toy that we give her."

"S-so you're the good cop?" Burnscar spat in disbelief. "This the part where you offer me a pl-place on your team? G-gonna tell me all about the exciting career opportunities being one of the Sins presents? Wash away my old identity and be... shit, what number would I be? Does anyone even know who you were b-before you were just another one of these Sins? What are you, the fourth or fifth Envy?"

"Third," Four replied coolly. "I've been lucky in that regard. Though not as lucky as One, of course. He created us, and he has always held his position. And yes, I was another person once. Actually, I would have been taken to the Birdcage years ago if the previous Four hadn't recruited me as her understudy."

"Oh right, you were the one with the stupid fucking name," Burnscar shivered again while visibly working to remember. "Jack talked about it. Th-thought it was funny. Fuck, what was it. Ingenuous?"

"Ingenue." Four corrected with a slight nod. "Yes, that is who I used to be, a long time ago. Now, well, things have a way of changing. I'm the third Envy, as I said. And I don't plan on there being a fourth. I happen to enjoy my life, particularly the part where it continues. Which means I must be prepared for those who would try to take it. That is where you come in, Mimi."

"R-right," the drenched woman sneered. "So it is a recruitment speech. I knew it."

Smiling thinly, Four shook her head. "Not exactly. At least, not as you imagine it." Looking to the ceiling, the woman spoke a bit louder. "You can release the chains now."

Burnscar fell to her knees with a yelp as the chains that had been supporting her abruptly cut her loose. Grimacing there, she looked up at the woman. "What the fuck do you mean, not exactly?"

Instead of answering, Envy turned and walked to the door she had come through. Pausing there, she looked back over her shoulder at the other woman. "Come, Mimi. I'll show you what I mean."

Picking herself up off the floor, Burnscar shook herself almost violently before rubbing at her sore wrists. "Ain't you afraid I'm gonna use my power to burn my way out of here?"

In response to that, Four simply smiled as though the thoroughly soaked brunette had said something amusing before continuing through the door. Outside the room, she called back, "Quickly now, Mimi. Don't make me wait for you. Patience is a virtue and I happen to be a vice."

A few long seconds later, Burnscar came through the door. Her gaze moved rapidly over the simple corridor as though searching for the exit or, more likely, a trap. She would see neither, and Envy strode away from her while speaking, "You never wanted to be a part of the Nine, did you?"

"Long story," the other woman retorted before reluctantly trailing after her for lack of a better option. "I was trying not to use my power. Fucks up my head, so I was trying to be g-good. Really. Got away from those doctors and I was just... really fucking trying. But some fuckface wouldn't leave me alone. Wanted me to do some nasty shit for him and wouldn't back off. So I used my power. Just to scare him at first, but then... then I liked it. So I burned him some more. Then I killed him. After that it's a blur of bad decisions. The Nine found me, recruited me, and... and I ain't going against them. Rather be one of them than one of their targets. And when I use my power, the guilt goes away."

Quietly, mostly under her breath, the young woman added, "Haven't used my power lately."

"Yes," Four nodded thoughtfully. "An adaptable morality, in a way. As long as you hurt people, you don't feel guilty about it. But when you stop hurting them, when you turn off your power... well, then you do feel that guilt, don't you? And every time you turn that power off, you have to feel more and more remorse. It piles up inside you so much that you just want the guilt to go away, just for a little bit. So you use your power. Just a little bit. Like an addict. You reach for your vice, your hit, and then the guilt goes away. It leaves, so you don't have to feel anymore, so you don't have to think about the monster you've become. Then you turn it off, and you feel it yet again. Only now it's even worse because you've done so many more horrible things. And so the cycle continues. Is there a bottom to this pit of guilt you're so busy burying yourself within, Mimi?"

"Fuck you," Burnscar spat the words. "I don't have to justify myself to you. You're a monster too."

"I wouldn't dream of asking you to do such a thing," Envy agreed easily, a small smile playing at her features. "This isn't about justification, dear girl. It's about understanding you."

Snorting, Burnscar shook her head. "Don't flatter yourself. Ain't nothing special to understand." Looking around as they ascended a flight of stairs, she added a bit warily, "Where're you taking me?"

"Right here," the other woman answered while stepping off the stairs and lifting her hand to indicate a nearby door. "As I said, there's something special that I want to show you, Mimi."

For a few seconds, Burnscar just stared at her companion, trying to decide if she should make a break for it and take her chances. It was tempting. Aside from the two of them, this hallway was as empty as the one below had been. There was no sign of any guards that could have stopped her from slugging this cunt in the face and running away. It was dry enough out here, away from those fucking sprinklers. Once she managed to get a flame going, she could burn this place down around these sons of bitches.

Instead, she reached for the doorknob. It turned easily enough, and she pushed the door open before stepping through to the brightly lit room beyond. Her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and she gasped.

"It's all right," Four spoke from behind her. "They won't hurt you. They can't anymore. Step inside, dear Mimi. None in this room will harm you. Of that, you have my word."

"Your word?" Burnscar echoed. Briefly, it looked as though she was going to say something else about that. But she decided against it. Instead, the woman took another step into the room and looked around.

The room was roughly the length and width of a basketball court. All four walls, as well as the floor and ceiling were covered by a protective padding that reminded her of the asylum she had spent so much time within. It was clearly meant to prevent the figures inside from harming themselves.

As for the figures themselves, there were nine in the room. All of whom were wearing the same simple gray sweat pants and tee shirts. Three were seated on the floor in a circle nearby. A toy lay between them, one of those things with the various pictures of animals and a string that could be pulled to send the arrow spinning around before it would land on one of the animals and make the appropriate sound. It was clearly something meant for preschoolers to play with. Yet each of the three figures gathered around it were giggling as the sound of a cow emerged, and none appeared any younger than Burnscar.

Passing the trio with a smile, Envy let her hand brush over the hair of one of them with a fond little gesture. She beckoned for her companion's attention and led her to a plastic table where two more figures, an elderly black man and a teenage girl with dark red skin were sitting. Neither were paying any attention to one another. The man was busy setting up several stacks of poker chips to various heights while talking to someone named Billy who didn't appear to actually be anywhere in sight. Meanwhile, the crimson-skinned girl was hugging herself tightly while she rocked back and forth without looking at anyone. Her lips were moving rapidly as the girl murmured a seemingly completely random string of numbers on and on without pausing either for breath or to look up at their visitors.

"You know what they do, right?" The voice came from neither of the two at the table, but from the sixth occupant of the room, a lanky man in his mid-twenties with a shock of red hair and eyes that looked at both Burnscar and Envy with evident bewilderment. "You've seen them, so you know."

"Know what who d-" Mimi started to question, but was interrupted as the other woman stepped in front of her.

"Of course, Walter," Four assured the man. "We know exactly what they do. That's why we're here, remember? You're safe here. They won't come this way. They can't come through the walls."

"Can't... can't come through the walls." The man nodded slowly and acceptingly at that before moving to pat the nearby padded wall as though it was a close friend or beloved pet. "Good wall. Good."

Two more figures, both young women, stood by another wall apparently engrossed in an intense conversation. Which might have looked normal enough if it hadn't been an argument about whether the secret conspiracy behind the Protectorate was a giant alien whale or a sapient fedora with a ponytail.

Finally, the ninth occupant lay in one of a dozen beds that took up the back half of the room. He was secured to the bed, trapped in place by several leather straps. The man rocked back and forth on the bed, his constant screams muffled by the gag that he wore, clearly meant to both silence the man and prevent him from biting his own tongue off.

"What... the hell is this place?" Mimi demanded. "This looks like... I mean, it's just like..."

"The asylum, yes." Four nodded in agreement. "We've tried to make my poor friends as comfortable as they can be. After all, we can't have them go and hurt themselves while I still need their powers."

Frowning, Burnscar shook her head. "The fuck does that mean? Your friends? Their powers? You mean these people are all capes?"

"They _were_ capes," Envy corrected. "Now they'd be hard pressed to do anything more with an actual cape than maybe blow their noses on it. Well, that's not really fair. Some could manage that just fine. The psychoses effect hits everyone a little bit differently. Some we have to restrain." She nodded toward the man who was still struggling and shouting into his gag. "Can't have him upsetting the others, or getting anyone hurt."

When Burnscar simply stared at her, the woman sighed before continuing. "I see power, Mimi. Literally. When I look at someone like you, I see what you're capable of, the powers that are just sitting inside of you, waiting to come out. I see people like them squander their powers, or use them incorrectly. And I just have to... fix the problem."

"Fix it?" The scarred woman frowned. "How the fuck do you 'fix it'?"

"Simple," Envy smiled once more before holding one hand up while the other gestured toward the black man sitting at the table. "A man who can cover his skin with an obsidian-like shell." At her words, the woman's own arm was suddenly sheathed in a pitch-black metallic armor.

Shaking her arm a moment later to make the armor vanish, the woman continued. "A girl," she gestured to the red-skinned young woman sitting at the table. "Who is capable of doing... this." In demonstration, Four held both hands up tightly closed into fists. After a couple of seconds, she opened them to reveal small black bits of goo in each. She threw them both, one to the floor and one against the wall. Each stuck where they were thrown, and an instant later a crackling line of electricity began to play back and forth between the two blobs, creating an arc.

"They can—you-" Burnscar jerked in surprise. "You. You're using their fucking powers. You're stealing their powers."

"In a way, yes, I suppose you could call it stealing," Envy mused. "I prefer to believe that I'm correcting their mistakes. They refuse to use their powers _correctly_ , so I do it for them. Sadly, I can only manifest one at a time, and the act of claiming and using the powers of another tends to leave the parahuman in question rather..." She gestured around the room. "Disturbed."

"Batshit crazy," Burnscar spat. "You steal their power and it drives them crazy."

"That is a rather blunt way of putting it," Four replied rather dryly. "But essentially, yes."

Backing away a step, Burnscar shook her head rapidly. "Yeah, well you can forget mine, bitch. Stay the fuck away from me. I'm getting the hell out of here, and you can just-" In mid-sentence, the woman threw her hand out as though to summon her fire, only for nothing to happen.

Four continued as though she hadn't just been threatened. "I can't simply take people's powers just like that, of course. It's not a touch thing. I have to open a dialogue with them. We have to have a conversation, an actual discussion, preferably about them. The longer the conversation continues, and the more they respond to me, the easier it is for me to gradually work my way inside to where their power is."

As she spoke, the woman held her hand out, palm up. A small flame came to life there, and she observed it thoughtfully. "Ahhh, you were right. This power is rather... exhilarating."

"Fuck! No- no you can't—you can't... you..." Burnscar took several steps forward, arms raised as though to throttle her opponent with her bare hands. After the third step, however, she stopped and her eyes grew glassy. She ducked her head, shaking it a few times as though trying to clear it. When she finally looked up, the hatred and violence had vanished from her face, replaced by confusion.

She stood still for a moment before turning away. Shuffling off toward the wall where the two other girls continued to argue over who the actual secret Protectorate leaders were. There was no more fight in her, no more anger or hatred. She was simply... broken inside. Her sanity, the bits that let her mind think clearly, had been snipped away, replaced by the connection that allowed Envy to use her power at will.

Breathing out a sigh of satisfaction, Envy watched her newest charge to make sure that Mimi was getting along with the others for a couple of minutes before leaving the room.

After closing the door behind her, she looked up to see another figure waiting in the hallway. "Seven."

Seven glared accusingly. "You were supposed to use her to find out where Jack was going next."

"She was never a true member of the Nine," Four assured the girl. "She couldn't have told us anything we didn't already know about them." Afterward, she added, "One promised that you would have your revenge, Seven. So you will. Keeping his promises is a point of... pride with him." She smiled faintly at her own joke.

Seven was not amused in the least. "It better happen soon. I'm tired of waiting. If we don't track them down soon and kill them all for what they did to my family, I'll go and do it by myself."

With that threat made, the girl pivoted on her heel and strode away. Envy watched her go without comment before shaking her head ruefully. That was one member of the Seven Sins who had fully embraced her chosen role.

Yes, Wrath was clearly a much better name for the young girl than Riley had been.


	6. Arc 6: Follow The Leader

_**Notes –** HellKing666: Yeah, I dolike to make things lighter than canon, though still with its own challenges. Like in this chapter, as you'll see. ;) As for Madison's pairing, it is tbd. Not really going into this with any expectation beyond an idea of a few possibilities. _

_Sins do not replace the Slaughterhouse Nine, no. As you no doubt worked out further on, the Sins are sort of rivals to the Nine. They attack each other as much as they do normal victims, consistently harassing one another._

 _Guest: "Thus far, everything looks good on Madison's front" – Keep reading. ;)_

 **6-01 – Emma**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

A finger poked at my shoulder unexpectedly, drawing a surprised yelp from me as I jerked backwards with images of stern-faced PRT officers with their guns raised and waiting flashing through my head. "Don't-" I blurted out loud, instinctively reaching for my power to freeze time so that I could escape.

At the very, _very_ last instant I stopped myself, remembering where I was. My wide eyes took in the sight of not a PRT officer or one of the city's heroes, but my own sister who stood next to the chair in the mall food court where I had been sitting for the past... however long I'd been waiting.

"Jeeze, Woody," Anne stared at me for a second. "Are you all right? I said your name like three times."

Trying to get my breathing back under control, I forced myself to nod. "I'm fine. Sorry, I zoned out."

"I'll say." Shaking her head, Anne paused briefly. She looked uncomfortable before moving to sit down across from me. "Look, you've been really jumpy this weekend. Is anything, you know, wrong?"

"Wrong?" I echoed, wondering where I would possibly start if I'd had any intention of telling my sister the truth. While thinking about it, I let my gaze pass over the rest of the busy food court. We'd come to the mall to get new shoes as well as a couple other things. I'd been glad to get out of the house after the last few days of paranoia and jumping at shadows. Unfortunately, sitting in the food court waiting for Anne to talk to someone she knew from college that we'd run into had given my brain time to wander. As usual for the past couple of days, my mind had used that time to conjure up scenario after scenario of what would happen if or when Brian told the good guys my real name.

Tattletale had thought that was unlikely, at least for now. She told me about some cops and robbers spiel that essentially amounted to 'cape villains that haven't done **that** horrible of things yet get a couple of passes before their identity is exposed and the PRT gets serious about containing them. Apparently it was one of those unwritten yet mutually respected rules that helped convince certain villains to go out of their way to help in cases such as Endbringer attacks and other mass casualty-threatening situations.

I wasn't sure how much stock I put in that, which was why I'd spent the last couple days jumping at every sound and not really sleeping that well. Once, I'd seen a police car go past our house and had spent the next two hours sitting on the back of the couch, staring intently out the window.

Yet no one had come, and my anxiety had gotten to the point where I'd leapt at Anne's suggestion that we go shopping. I would have taken anything that had the chance to make me feel somewhat normal.

Realizing that I'd been staring off into space for a few seconds, I shook my head. "I'm fine, Anne."

Her eyes rolled. "Yeah, like I believe that. No, Emma, there's something going on with you. Plus there's the fact that you haven't said more than six words to Dad all week since you guys had that fight."

Biting my lip, I shrugged and mumbled under my breath. "I don't really wanna talk about it."

For a moment, I thought Anne was going to push the issue. Her mouth opened before she hesitated. Then a resigned expression crossed her face and she gave a slight nod. "Okay. But Emma, if you ever do want to talk about that, or anything else, anything at all? I'm here, okay? And I won't rat you out to... to Mom and Dad." She gave me a solemn look. "Sisters have to have some secrets together, right?"

Images of how she would react if I actually told her what I had been up to lately, and just why I was so paranoid, filled my mind. I wondered how fast she'd call the police then, 'for my own good.'

Shaking off those thoughts, I made myself nod while meeting her gaze. "Right. Sisters have secrets."

Anne reached across the table, taking my hand and squeezing it firmly. "Listen, Woody. I think-" she started before glancing up and over my shoulder. "Hey, isn't that Madison over there?"

Blinking at that, I turned slightly to look that way. Sure enough, Madison was on the other side of the food court. She was laughing at something the pretty blonde girl next to her was saying. The two of them seemed to be part of a larger group that included a boy with dirty blonde hair and several more girls. None of them looked familiar to me at all, which was weird considering Madison was still going to Winslow as far as I knew. Where had she met all these other people?

While I watched, Madison laughed again at something the boy had said. She looked away from him then, and in mid-laugh, her eyes fell on me. She stopped laughing, and the two of us stared at one another from across the room. Neither of us moved, or said anything. We just stared.

Anne nudged me after another few seconds of that. "Well, you wanna go say hi, or what?"

Biting my lip, I hesitated. Madison hadn't stopped staring, and it felt like one of us needed to do something. Yet I wasn't sure what to do. I'd figured that the other girl was angry because of my father. We hadn't talked much since then, but it was a weight that hung between us in every conversation.

I didn't know how to fix it. In the days following what had happened to Taylor, Madison and I had actually grown close. Closer than we'd been before, actually. More like real friends. We'd bonded while deciding what had to be done and gathering our courage to do the right thing and turn ourselves in. But after my father had ruined that, our closer friendship had pretty much fallen apart immediately. I don't think Madison fully believed that I'd had nothing to do with it. And who could blame her? After all, being a two-faced traitor of a friend wouldn't exactly be a new experience for me.

The brunette said something else, and Madison blushed before looking away to respond. The spell was broken, and I shook my head. "No," I mumbled before standing up. "Can we go now?"

Anne looked like she was going to say something else, but finally sighed and nodded while rising. "All right, let's go then. According to Miss Johansen, Journeys is having a pretty good sale.

"Miss Johansen?" I echoed while we started to work our way through the food court. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Madison's little group had been joined by a dark haired woman in her late twenties.

Anne was nodding. "Yeah, Rebecca Johansen, my English Lit professor. She showed up while I was talking to Trudy back there. Apparently she practically needed a crowbar to pry her niece out of Journeys. That's how I found out about the sale." Glancing to me, she added. "Will **I** need a crowbar?"

I snorted at that, but before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I reached down to tug it out, glancing at the screen before freezing abruptly in mid-step at the words on the screen.

 _Lisa: B's at his apartment. No friends._

B was Brian. Lisa and the others had been keeping an eye on his place, waiting to see if and when he ever came back to it. No friends was the signal that he didn't seem to have an escort. Which meant that we might be able to get in to talk to him and get some actual answers.

Blanching, I looked up from my phone to find Anne staring at me expectantly. "I..." I started before flinching. God, she'd just been trying to bond with me and get me to open up and now I had to run off. "I'm sorry, I really..." Biting my lip, I tried again. "Something just came up, can we do this later?"

For a few seconds, Anne didn't say anything. She looked thoughtful before abruptly asking, "Are you okay? This—whatever you have to do, are you sure you need to do it right now?"

I swallowed a little before nodding. "It's important. I—I'm sorry, I've been waiting for something and now it—it's something I need to do. And it's kind of time-sensitive. I'm really sorry, Anne."

Though she didn't exactly look thrilled, Anne nodded. "Okay. But like I said, if you ever need to talk, I'll be there." With that said, she added, "Do you need me to drive you anywhere?"

I shook my head, though something compelled me to embrace my sister. "Thanks, Anne. But no, I'll be fine. Someone's coming to pick me up."

She nodded at that, but as I started to pull away, Anne held me tighter. "Hey." She waited until I looked up at her. "I mean it, Woody. You need anything, I'll be there, okay? I know you've been going through a tough time. I can't even imagine it. And I know you and Dad aren't getting along. But whatever happens, if you need something, call me. I don't care what it is or what time it happens to be. Promise?"

If only Anne actually knew what she was offering. Blinking a couple of times to stop the dampness from finding its way to my eyes, I made myself nod. "Sure, Anne. I... I'll call you if I need anything."

Only once I'd said the words did my sister release me. Then she stepped back out of the way and gestured with both hands. "Okay, go do... whatever it is you have to do all of a sudden."

Still, I hesitated for a second. Part of me felt like I should just tell Anne what was going on, and what had been bothering me. I desperately wanted to confide in someone who wasn't one of the Undersiders.

But no. Anne still didn't deserve to be put in that position. Even if she didn't freak out and call the cops, it wouldn't be fair to force her into making that kind of decision. So, I just made myself smile and give her a thumbs up. "Have fun at the sale." Then I turned on my heel and started to make my way back through the crowd while quickly typing out a response to tell Lisa that I was on my way to meet them.

Time to find out what the hell was going on with Brian.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, after extensive use of my power, I joined the others in the motel room cross from Brian's apartment building. This was where they'd been staying, aside from Tyler and I. No one dared go back to their base until we knew what was going on and how much Brian had told the authorities.

Once I was sure the hallway was clear, I moved up to the door, pausing at the sound of the loud television on the other side before knocking. I would have simply teleported in, but I didn't want to freak out Bitch or her dogs any more than they already were by appearing out of nowhere.

Actually, she'd toned down over the last couple days. I didn't know if the fact that I'd helped rescue her from PRT custody was helping to win her over, or if Brian switching sides had just drawn so much of her anger that she didn't have much left over for me. Whatever the reason, she pretty much ignored me.

The door was opened a couple seconds after I knocked, and Lisa ushered me inside before closing the door. "Tyler's not here," she said. "Couldn't get out of some tutoring session she had to do."

Inside the room, the sound of the television was even louder. Alec was sitting in front of it, playing some video game that he'd hooked up. He barely glanced up as I came in before returning his attention to his game with a new intensity, his fingers flying rapidly over the controls while his brow furrowed.

Alec had been acting weird ever since we told him who Hax was. The girl herself had disappeared almost immediately after we'd gotten out of there, along with her two partners. She hadn't said a word to Alec, and when we'd told him about it, he'd refused to discuss it as well.

Instead, he'd been spending the last few days buried in these video games and eating. That was pretty much all he did aside from sleep, as far as I could tell. Part of me wanted to ask about it, but I didn't know how to bring it up. And besides, it really wasn't any of my business.

The motel room had a connecting door into the room next to it, which was open. Rachel and her dogs were staying in that room for the time being, apparently. The girl herself was standing in the doorway, watching as I entered. She stared at me hard for a few seconds before speaking up. "Figure out what that asshole is doing so we can get the fuck out of here. This place is too cramped for my dogs."

Looking from her to Lisa, I found the blonde holding two things out to me. The first was my costume, while the other was a simple brown paper bag. "This is for you."

"What?" I took the both, setting the costume aside before glancing into the paper bag. As soon as I saw what was in it, I promptly dropped the bag with a gasp. "That—that's money."

"Three thousand dollars," Lisa replied with a nod. "It's your part of the payment from the boss for the armored car job. You can do whatever you want with it, but he suggested you use some of it to make yourself a better costume and get any equipment you might need."

I just stared at the paper bag full of cash for a few long seconds before gingerly picking it up and setting it on the nearby bed. I really didn't want to think about it for the moment.

Instead, I looked back to Lisa. "He's still in there by himself? You're, uhh, you're sure?"

She glanced out the nearby window before nodding. "I've been watching everyone that goes anywhere near the building. As far as I can tell, he's all by himself." Looking back to me, she added, "You sure you're okay with going in by yourself?"

That was the plan we'd come up with. I would go in and talk to Brian since I could _probably_ escape from pretty much any trap that the PRT had set. And if things went wrong, Tattletale, Regent, and Bitch would be waiting. Nimue was supposed to have been there as well, but we couldn't wait for Tyler to finish up with her tutoring session.

"Yeah," I nodded while picking up my costume. "I'm sure. I'll talk to him and find out... what he said."

From the other room, Rachel called, "Break his fucking nose!"

Coughing at that, I shook my head at Lisa before focusing on my power. An instant (to them) later, I was dressed in my costume. Giving the other girl and Alec (not that he was paying attention) a thumbs up, I said, "Keep an eye on the apartment, please. You know, just in case."

Once Lisa had agreed not to take her eyes off the other building, I froze time and tossed myself through the wall to float across the wide street. My gaze took in the red-hued city around me while I positioned myself at the right apartment, the one on the fourth floor.

There was a stone balcony out here, with a glass door next to a massive floor to ceiling window.

This was a very nice apartment. With time still frozen, I made my way through the closed door and into the spacious living room. To one side there was a set of stairs leading to a bedroom, while a second bedroom was on this level near the bathroom. The small kitchen was to one side, and the living room where the actual entrance was lay ahead of me.

Brian was standing in the kitchen, using a can opener on some ravioli. Instead of focusing on him, however, I gave the apartment as thorough of a once-over as I could. I looked for anything that might indicate a trap, even going as far as hiding myself inside the upper bedroom so that I could take another breath and search the apartment some more.

By the time I had satisfied myself, Brian had put his bowl of ravioli into the microwave and was reaching for the button. I put myself on the other side of the island counter and then let time resume.

The instant that I appeared, Brian jumped. His eyes widened, and then his hand came up. Before I could move, a cloud of darkness appeared, and my voice of protest was swallowed up and muted.

Yet I could still see, I realized a second later. Brian had covered my mouth with his darkness, but he'd left my eyes exposed. While I stared, he held a finger to his lips while staring at me intently.

I nodded, and he removed the darkness. Then the boy walked back around the counter. He raised his hand to point to the computer that was sitting at the desk in the living room, and I followed him to it.

At the computer, Brian brought up a word document and began to type the words, _Feel here._

Reading that, I blinked up to find him holding his arm out, pointing to the inside of his shoulder. Frowning, I reached out to touch the spot there, finding a small, strange lump.

When I looked up at him questioningly, Brian typed again. _Bug. They can hear everything. Don't talk. Don't say anything. Just pay attention._ He waited until I nodded, then continued his typing. _I'm sorry. They gave me a chance to switch sides, to get a real job with them so I could help my sister. I had to take it. It's nothing personal. I had to think about Aisha._

Biting my lip, I hesitated before nodding slowly so that he would go on. He gave me a long look, then typed again. _Didn't tell them who you or any of the others were. That's part of the deal. I don't give up any information about you guys. But don't go back to the base. I had to tell them about that. And we can't talk. I can't see you guys at all. The bug keeps track of my location and records every sound._

After making sure I was still paying attention, he took a breath before continuing. _They're adding cameras to my costume to make sure I never do anything to help you guys. The next time we meet in costume, I_ _ **have**_ _to do my best to stop you. If they feel like I'm not trying after going over the footage, my deal falls through. I'm sorry. I have to protect Aisha. That's all I can tell you. They're paying attention to everything I do. Tell Tt that I'm not saying anything about you guys or anyone else. But if we catch you, I can't hold back. This is the last time we can talk. After this, I have to play the game from their side._

I stared at the screen for a long few seconds, then let out a low breath before nodding. I was glad he didn't want me to speak, I wouldn't have known what to say.

Finally, he wrote, _Good luck. I hope you find what you're looking for. But if we go against each other, I won't hold back. I can't._

Looking up from the screen one last time, I gave him a final nod before stepping back. He watched me silently, waiting for me to leave. After another second, I froze time and did just that, leaving Brian's apartment behind.

Time to talk to the others and tell them that Brian wasn't going to expose our identities. But he also wasn't going to help us in the future. As he'd said, the next time we saw each other in costume, he'd have to do his best to stop us.

Because he really was one of the Wards now. With Sophia.

Boy would I have liked to have been a fly on the wall when she found that out.

 **6-02 – Taylor**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

"I don't get it," Mockshow objected the next morning. "How are we supposed to steal this chick out from under the noses of every crime cape family in Vegas? Isn't the whole point of Vegas that they employ a bazillion Thinkers just so they can never be surprised by anything?"

All of us were together, sitting on the balcony of the hotel suite that Faultline had paid for, eating a massive breakfast that had been delivered by room service. They'd brought up every kind of breakfast food I could think of off the top of my head, and Faultline had insisted that we eat as much as possible to prepare for everything that was going to happen later. At her repeated urging, I had made myself stop thinking about how much this must have cost and started enjoying it. Not that it took that much effort. I was **still** ecstatic over being able to pick up my own knife and fork, cut my own piece of ham, and put it to my own mouth. Such a simple, ridiculously small thing, yet doing it still almost made me cry.

My vision, for the moment, had settled into its panoptic view so that I saw not only everything on the patio from every angle, but everything inside the rather large suite with its connected bedrooms as well as the suite next door which was where Elle, me, and Mockshow had slept the night before.

This place wasn't the most expensive or posh hotel in the city, but as far as I was concerned it might as well have been. I'd never stayed at anything resembling an even slightly upscale place. Actually, the only times I could remember staying in a motel at all had been while my mother was alive.

Remembering that dulled some of the happiness that being able to feed myself was providing, but I shut it aside after a moment. No. I wasn't going to dwell on that. Dwelling on my mother was what had made me weak in the first place. Being sad and feeling sorry for myself made Emma turn into a bitch. I couldn't do that again. Not now that I finally had _something_ worth caring about and looking forward to.

No, I was going to prove that I belonged here. I was going to help Faultline any way that I could. Somehow, someway, I'd pay her back for everything she had done for me already. Which meant paying attention to what she said, learning from her, and becoming the kind of person she could depend on.

"There is something important that you should realize very soon," Faultline replied to Mockshow's question without looking away from her examination of the Vegas skyline. "And that is that 'thinker' might just be the most poorly named brand of parahuman there happens to be."

Turning to face the other girl finally, she continued. "Because there's nothing particularly thought-worthy or intelligent about being handed answers on a plate. Most thinkers are as smart as their powers make them be, and I promise you, most powers are _profoundly_ stupid."

"In fact," she went on. "Not-Thinkers might be more apt, because the vast majority of them don't. Calling a Thinker an intelligent person is essentially the same as assuming that a grown man who makes a living playing tee-ball would do just as well if he was tossed onto a major league team."

Mockshow was shaking her head while stabbing a chunk of ham with her fork. She took the bite before speaking with her mouth full. "What do you mean, stupid? They seem pretty smart to me. They're like, precogs and danger senses and shit like that. I mean-" In mid-sentence, she snapped her fingers. "Wait, you mean it's like when someone cheats in school. They get the answers to the test so they ace it."

"Right," Emily spoke up from where she was standing next to the railing with her own plate in her hand. "But they don't actually know how to do the work. Someone just gave them the answers and they copied them over. They don't know the material, they just know how to repeat what they were told."

"Exactly." Faultline nodded before adding, "Most, there are exceptions, but most are only as smart as their powers make them. Take away their abilities and they're no more capable of intelligence and planning than a de-powered Legend would be able to flap his arms and fly."

"Okay, sure. I can go with 'people are fucking stupid,'" Mockshow agreed. "But how do we use that against them? Cuz the last time I checked, they _will_ still have their powers when we try to grab this chick. And you know, you can call it cheating all you want, but in the end they still get the answers."

"Yes, they do." Faultline smiled faintly while taking a sip of her coffee. She waited for a beat before continuing pointedly. "That's why we make sure they're getting the answers to the wrong test."

When Mockshow continued to stare at her blankly, Faultline looked, of all places, to me. "Taylor, can you guess what I mean by giving them the answers to the wrong test?"

Taken by surprise, I hesitated. Using the excuse of reaching out to pick up the cup of hot tea that Faultline had provided, I brought it to my mouth to take a sip so that I could think. Meanwhile, Elle, seated behind me, continued to play absently with my hair. I wasn't sure what she was doing, but she seemed happy enough and I wasn't going to object. Which felt kind of strange, in a way. Back when the trio were still making my life hell, the idea of letting anyone do something to my hair while I wasn't paying attention to what they were up to would have been completely unthinkable. I would have been too paranoid that they'd shave it off or dump something sticky and nasty into it. Hell, I'd barely managed to get it cut without constantly twitching every time the stylist's hands touched me.

Yet right then, focusing on the feel of Elle's hands brushing at my hair and gently shaping it was actually soothing, and gave me a chance to think clearly about what Faultline was asking.

After a couple seconds, I set the cup down and reached out for the pad of paper that sat next to my plate. Picking it and the pen beside it up, I scribbled my best guess. My penmanship was pretty messy considering the signals were being interpreted by the suit and it wasn't all that great at things like that. But it was at least legible, and I wrote quickly before handing the pad over to Faultline.

She took it, reading my words aloud, "Make them see the wrong threat." Smiling then, she nodded. "Yes, pretty much. Well, that's one thing we're doing anyway. We'll be sending the local Protectorate team an anonymous tip that should keep one of the families and their thinkers busy. Beyond that, well, there is another way we have to play against thinker expectations. Particularly these kind of thinkers, since they're so incredibly focused on making money for their masters."

"Oooh! Oooh!" Newter was grinning all of a sudden. "You mean we're gonna do the same thing we did back in Dallas? You know, the thing with the car dealership and all that gasoline."

"A version of that, yes," Faultline replied with a slight smile. "Actually, considering our membership has grown, we can split up a bit." Trailing off at that thought, she looked toward me, then to Spitfire. "Emily," she started. "I want you to be in charge of this second group. That'll be you, Elle, Taylor, and Mockshow. Gregor, Newter, and I will handle the part where we actually pick up Shamrock."

"Wait," Emily frowned uncertainly, raising the same question I had. "If you guys are the ones that are actually going to where the mafia guys are, then what are we supposed to be doing in the meantime?"

Then Faultline told us what we were going to be doing. And I discovered another deficiency in this otherwise amazing suit. As good as it was, and as much as it let me do, it still couldn't help me laugh.

* * *

Hours later, I was standing on the edge of a hill beside Mockshow, Labyrinth, and Spitfire. We'd been waiting here long enough for my view to encompass most of the street past the trees that we were using as cover. Which meant that I had a good enough view of the nearby wall surrounding our target to track the position of the constantly rotating camera, as well as part of the reinforced gate further down.

"Remember guys," Spitfire was saying. "For now, we do as little damage as possible. We get in, we secure the place, and then we wait. No smashing, no going nuts. Not yet."

Once again, I was wearing a simple black ski mask to go with the black of the suit. Faultline had promised that she'd help me learn how to customize it the way I wanted once I actually got got some money of my own. I appreciated that, honestly. I was glad that she was only giving me the necessities rather than trying do absolutely everything for me. It gave me something to earn for myself.

Beside me, Elle was in her robe with the maze drawn over it and the mask that covered her platinum blonde hair. Her hand squeezed mine while she continued to gaze off into the distance at nothing.

No, not nothing. I didn't know exactly what she was seeing or where her mind happened to be at the moment, but it was decidedly not nothing. Her grip on my hand was light enough that I was fairly sure she wasn't seeing anything bad, and she occasionally squeezed as though reassuring herself that I was there. I squeezed back every time to show her that I was, even if I couldn't jump into her head just then.

Part of me wanted to. Elle's other worlds were amazing to explore. The two of us had actually started mapping some of them out, getting an idea of just how much space she had to work with and what she could do. For her part, Elle seemed eager to show me everything she could, though there were some places she said we couldn't go to because they were 'bad.' I was still thinking about how to help the other girl get past her fear of them, and wished I knew what to say besides 'I'll go with you', which seemed entirely too cliché and ineffective considering the apprehension she had shown.

Whatever I eventually did to help her, I was going to have to figure it out later. The phone in Spitfire's hand gave a single beep, meaning that it was time for us to start our part of Faultline's plan.

Spitfire straightened, her voice betraying her obviously nervousness about being in charge for the moment. I couldn't really blame her for that. "Ready, Mockshow?"

"Damn straight," the younger girl replied while hopping from foot to foot to prepare. She looked toward me impatiently waiting for the signal until I dropped my hand to indicate that the camera was facing the opposite direction. As soon as I did, she launched herself into a sprint.

Spitfire was right behind her, and I brought up the rear along with Labyrinth, pulling the other girl by the hand so that she would stay with us. She came along easily enough, and we crossed the street to approach the property that, according to Faultline, belonged to the mobster whose goons had captured Shamrock. He called himself Omertá, which apparently was the term for the vow the Mafia people took to never cooperate with authorities and to keep silent about everything they knew. Violating that oath was punishable by death, which pretty much told you everything you needed to know about him.

It was also why we were even trying this, since it wasn't likely that someone like Omertá would risk having any of his property set with alarms that would actually alert the police. No, he'd have his own on-site security, and the hope was that we could handle that for the time being. Especially since a sizable portion of the man's entourage and company would be with him to witness the execution of Shamrock, and to protect him from any particular backstabbing from one of the other families.

The guard standing next to the gate barely had a chance to turn around at the sound of running footsteps before Mockshow's hand reached out to slap at the iron gate. With a creak of metal, one of the poles of the gate jerked downward immediately to smack the man in the face, knocking him down.

Mockshow put both hands on the gate then, taking the time to transform it back the way it should be before making it open for us. Stepping aside, she gestured grandly. "See, told you I'd get us in."

"Brag later," Spitfire reminded her. "Deal with guards now. Come on, come on."

Before I could move any further, however, my vision jumped. Instead of seeing an all-around view of our group and the grounds surrounding us, I was seeing a single view through the scope of a rifle. It was almost identical to the moment back in the hospital when I had seen through that sniper's eyes. In this case, however, the person in the middle of the reticle wasn't Lung or any of the ABB. It was Labyrinth.

I jerked my vision back over to myself instantly, yanking Elle hard by the hand to get her out of the sniper's sight barely a second before the bullet from the silenced weapon pinged off of the gate behind where she had been. The other girl yelped in surprise, but didn't resist as I hauled her out of the way.

Elle. That son of a bitch was trying to shoot Elle. Righteous anger filled me, and I took a step forward while my combat-vision spread out to show me exactly where the man with the gun happened to be: on the edge of the roof. He was readying for another shot, this time centered on me. Worse, there was another man coming around the corner on the ground level with his own weapon raised.

Before either man could get off another shot, I stooped and grabbed a small stone off of the ground in my right hand. Rising up smoothly while letting my power fill in the angles and timing, I tossed it.

The sniper on the roof fired then, his shot coming straight for my defenseless head. Unfortunately for him, I'd managed to throw my rock first. The stone arced through the air, putting itself in the exactly right position at just the right time so that the bullet ricocheted off of it in midair. The bullet rebounded, cutting through the shoulder of the man who had fired it. He jerked with a cry, dropping his gun while stumbling. He slipped on the edge of the room during his staggering, falling sideways onto a nearby railing, then to the tree next to it, and finally to the ground where he lay groaning.

Meanwhile, the rock that had been hit by the bullet was broken in half. One piece went nowhere in particular, while the other flew straight into the eye of the man that had been coming around the corner. He flailed, his gun flying from his hand as he grabbed at his damaged eye with a scream of pain.

"Dude," Mockshow informed me after we had secured both of the injured men. "I am so glad that you're on our side."

"For once, I completely agree with Mockshow," Spitfire put in while running straight up to the front door of the mansion. She jerked the door open just as a woman in a maid uniform started to open it from the other side. The servant yelped as she was yanked off balance, until Spitfire grabbed her arm and told her to be quiet and come with her. Clearly terrified, the girl let herself by pulled out to the grass and obediently stayed still until Spitfire had tied her up next to the two security guards.

We continued that way, dispatching and tying up what ended up being a skeleton crew of security. Faultline had been right, Omertá had taken the vast majority of his men, and all of his capes, with him out to the site of the execution. Even then, the thinkers that one of the other family's employed might have been able to warn him about this, if Faultline's anonymous call hadn't sicced the authorities onto one of their job sites, thoroughly distracting them from focusing on anything else. Omertá had been forced to rely on his own thinkers, whose efforts we were (hopefully) dealing with right now.

By the time our work was finished, we had eight guards tied up and waiting to be dealt with, along with half a dozen additional servants that we'd worked our way through the house taking care of. We didn't hurt the latter, at least as little as possible. Mostly we just tied them up and dragged them outside to the grass with the security guards. There, they couldn't get themselves (or us) into trouble and they wouldn't be in the way if we ended up having to go to phase two of this little plan.

My combat power left me the second it was clear that there were no more threats left in the house, and I collapsed right onto the floor of the grand living room of this absurdly well-decorated and obviously expensive mansion. I didn't even want to think about how much blood money had gone into paying for this place. Part of me wanted to go ahead and destroy the whole thing, burn it to the ground so that these evil thugs would learn what it was like to lose something that they cared about.

But that wasn't the plan. Not yet.

Crouching next to me, Elle gave my face a pat and looked concerned until I gave her a thumbs up. The suit still worked, but the exhaustion that hit me right after exercising the combat applications of my power were so intense that I still had to drop immediately afterward.

"Place looks clear," Spitfire announced on her way back down the stairs from a final sweep. "Now we wait."

"God damn, dude," Mockshow called out from the other room. She came back into view, carrying a pool cue. "You guys should see the game room they've got in here. Anyone wanna play?" The girl asked while raising the cue. "Ah, except you," she added while using it to point at me. "Pretty sure you could sink every single ball by like, throwing a marble at one of the balls from right where you're sitting."

As it turned out, we didn't have that long to wait. Spitfire's phone rang, and she put it onto speaker so we could all hear the uncertain voice that came out the other side. "Uh, is this Spitfire?"

"Yeah," Emily replied. "That's me. Is this Shamrock?"

There was a momentary pause before the girl's voice responded. "Yeah, code phrase is uhh, ten, beta, camel, thirty-six, Boston, Vancouver."

Something in me relaxed then. It had worked. That was the code phrase that Faultline had said she would give Shamrock to tell us if she'd been rescued and was safe.

Because that was our plan. That was how Faultline had planned on how to beat Omertá's pet thinkers and precogs. They were focused on what would make him money and achieve his goals. Actions that would hurt him showed up as bad, while actions that were better for him showed up as good.

That was the entire reason that we had taken over the house he'd left behind while doing as little damage as possible. Faultline had made us swear that we wouldn't damage anything in the house _**unless**_ we didn't get a call specifically from Shamrock by a certain time saying that she was free. If we didn't get that call, our orders were to completely demolish the place and destroy absolutely everything that we could. By the same token, if we ran into significant forces, saw Omertá himself, or happened to notice anything at all that indicated that he hadn't gone on with his plan for the public execution, we were also to hit as hard as we could.

That way, when the man's thinkers focused on this execution plan and the site they had in mind for it, their powers would tell them that going on with the plan was better for him. Because if they didn't go out there where Faultline and the others could confront him, thus leading to Shamrock's freedom, a whole lot of his toys would end up being destroyed. The thinkers would simply see continuing the plan as good, and not continuing it as bad.

By the same token, when Faultline confronted him and let the man know what the situation was, his thinkers could tell him the truth: that refusing her would cost him a lot more than handing over the girl. Because if he didn't hand over Shamrock so that she could make that call to us, we'd destroy everything on this property since she wouldn't be able to call us.

Put simply, their powers wouldn't register the small loss of losing Shamrock for following through with the plan over the much larger loss of the destruction of the man's house if he didn't. Apparently, they didn't really get specifics. Most precogs didn't, actually. They dealt more with impressions and feelings, what felt good and what felt bad.

According to Faultline, it was all about manipulating a Thinker's expectations. I wasn't sure I understood it all yet, but so far it seemed to have worked.

"Is Faultline there?" Spitfire asked while taking a seat on the nearby chair.

"Yeah," Shamrock's still dazed voice reported. "Hold on."

There was a pause and then Faultline's voice came through. "Are we good?"

"It's all set," Spitfire confirmed. "We're ready to meet you at the rendezvous."

"Good," Faultline replied. "We're just at the-" Abruptly, her voice rose. "Newter, left!" There was a screech of tires, followed by a terrible scream of metal, then a series of loud bangs.

Beside me, poor Elle cried out, "Faultline!"

"Okay!" Faultline's voice returned, though I could hear the pain in it. "We're okay! Everyone out of the car. Move, move." Her voice urged before speaking to us. "One of the other families. Not Omertá. They hit the car with something that knocked out the engine. Might have been the edge of an EMP. If they hit us again, we might lose-"

Then there was silence. The call had been cut off, most likely by the EMP that Faultline had mentioned.

"Shit..." Spitfire was staring at the phone in her hand. "Shit, shit. One of the other families? They were supposed to follow Omertá's lead."

"Guess someone forgot to tell them that," Mockshow remarked. "So are we gonna go help them, or just sit here with our thumbs up our asses?"

I had picked myself off the floor by that point, and walked past the others purposefully. They looked at me until I reached a door on the other side of the room. Twisting the knob, I pushed it open and pointed at the car-filled garage on the other side.

"Right." Getting herself under control, Spitfire nodded to me. "Victory's right. We'll... we'll steal one of the cars here and go out. We know the route Faultline and the others were taking, so we get out there and rescue them. Everyone else okay with that?"

Stepping beside me, Elle spoke firmly. "Rescue them."

"Yeah," Spitfire nodded. "We'll rescue them, Labyrinth.

"I just hope we get there in time."

 **6-03 – Sophia**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

"I swear to god, if you don't stop fidgeting, I'm going to put this pencil through your hand." I growled the words under my breath just barely loud enough for the girl sitting across from me to hear.

It was Tyler, of course. The little geek girl was over at my house playing through her little tutor gig. Right now, that consisted of sitting at the kitchen table bouncing her legs and twitching every couple of seconds in a completely infuriating manner while I tried to focus on filling out the quiz she'd given me.

"Sorry," she replied with a goofy little nerd smile before ducking her head. I saw the Korean girl take in a deep breath and hold it. It was clearly taking all she had to remain that still, as if not bouncing around and fidgeting every two seconds was literally going to make her explode.

After writing out another couple of answers, I made a face before putting the pencil down and looking up at the girl. "Look, do you have some kind of problem? Am I keeping you away from something? Because I promise, however much you don't want to fucking be here, I've got you beat."

The twitchy little girl flinched and shook her head. "No, no. I'm sorry. I was just—umm, you know, I guess I'm a little bit hyper today or something. Sorry, I'll sit still, I promise. How's, uh, how's it going?"

I treated that question with the growl it deserved before returning my attention to the quiz. Slowly working my way through the sheet, I let the silence continue for awhile before speaking again. "You know this is bullshit, right? I know enough of this to get by, and it's not like I'll ever go to college?"

"Umm, wh-why wouldn't you go to college though?" Clearly, to this ridiculous little Asian geek, the idea of not going to college was tantamount to saying I was going to jump into an active cement mixer.

For a moment, I entertained the idea of telling the girl the truth. I amused myself by wondering how much she might flip out if I told her who I really was. I could have told her that I wasn't going to college because you didn't need a degree to beat gangbangers' heads in. Hell, this little geek would probably treat me to the same hero worship I'd gotten from Emma when she'd first found out about me. Back when things had been so easy and simple, before all these stupid fucking complications. Before...

"I just won't," I said with abrupt sharpness. "Stop asking me those dumb questions and let me get back to _these_ dumb questions." Pointedly, I grabbed the pencil and began to scribble on the paper again.

Several more minutes went by, and I was finished with as much of the sheet as I could get done before Tyler spoke again. Her voice was even more tentative than usual. "Umm, Sophia, can I... umm, ask you something?" She waited until I looked up and squinted at her before going on with an obviously uncertain waver. "W-why, umm, why is everyone around here so mad at you? Did you get in trouble?"

Resisting the urge to audibly snarl at the girl, I forced the words out. "Why the hell do you care?"

"I don't!" Tyler protested quickly, raising both hands in surrender before awkwardly adjusting the perch of her glasses. "What I mean is, I don't... umm, you know, really care that much. But I thought umm, maybe talking about it might help you with your sch-schoolwork, because you're so stressed."

"Trust me," I shot back. "You really don't want me to talk about it. Might scar your fragile little brain."

Blanching, the other girl squirmed in her seat before nodding. "O-okay, you don't have to talk about it. But umm, if you ever do w-want to, I just thought it might help if you talked to someone who didn't know a-anything about it and couldn't umm, couldn't really do anything anyway. Get it off your chest."

Annoyed, I scribbled out my last couple of answers before shoving the quiz away. "There, fuck, done." Clamping my mouth shut while Tyler took the paper and started to look at it, I lasted almost a minute before speaking three words that I didn't consciously mean to speak. "I hurt someone."

Blinking up from the paper, glasses having slipped partway down her face while she was looking at it, my nerdy tutor echoed rather cluelessly, "You hurt someone?"

I pushed the chair back but didn't get up. It was just something to do, something to expend restless energy on. "Yeah, I hurt someone pretty bad. That's why my mom acts like that. That's why... all this shit is happening. That's why you're here. Cuz I'm on probation, and that includes keeping my grades up. And to test my fucking patience because they think if they shove some babbling little nerd at me, I'll lose my temper and smack you or something so they have an excuse to toss me in juvie."

Clearly thinking about that for a few seconds, the clueless girl then asked, "Are you going to hit me?"

I stared at her, mouth opening and shutting before demanding, "What the fuck kind of question is that?"

Her response was a shrug and simple, "Uh, a pretty relevant one. Y-you know, from my perspective."

Snorting at that, I gave the girl a long look. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

Again, she shrugged. "Um, that sort of depends. I-if you're not gonna hit me, it's a joke. If umm, if you are gonna hit me, then it's, you know, establishing premeditation?" She offered with a weak smile.

I forced the snicker to come out as a cough. No sense making the girl think she was actually amusing or anything. Even if it was nice to talk to someone who wasn't either avoiding me or outright treating me like Hannibal Lecter. "Believe me, tutor-girl, if I was actually gonna hit you, I would have done it back when you showed me how many questions were on that god damn quiz."

Flushing visibly, Tyler shifted back in her seat while admitting, "Okay, maybe I went a _little_ overboard with that. Sorry. But umm..." She hesitated again, looking uncertain before blurting, "That girl, the one that you hurt. Why... umm, why did you? Why did you hurt her, I mean. What did she do to you?"

"What did she do?" I repeated the words before shaking my head. "Fuck, it's not about what—I mean it's not like it was- that's just another stupid..." I trailed off, biting my lip as our gazes met silently.

A loud beep interrupted that silence after another moment, and I jumped before realizing that it was coming from my cell phone. The alarm that I'd set to let me know when the tutoring session was over had gone off. Realizing what it meant, I grabbed the phone and all-but jumped to my feet. "Sorry, gotta go." I informed her. "Good luck grading that quiz and whatever. Lemme know how I did."

"Oh, umm, okay." Standing up almost as quickly as I had, Tyler held the quiz in one hand. "I guess I'll talk to you later then." She waved the paper. "I'll text you after I finish going over this."

"Sure," I replied distractedly, my mind already elsewhere. "You know the way out of the house, right? Great." Without waiting for a response, I all-but jogged out of the kitchen to head for my bedroom.

Ignoring the sound of the girl making her way out of the house, I went straight across my room to the closet and dug through it for a minute before reaching the false panel. Sliding that aside, I reached in to take out my Shadow Stalker costume. Tonight was a Wards patrol, and I didn't feel like giving Fat-Fuck any more reason to bitch me out by being late. Even if it also meant meeting that cocksucker Grue.

Right, that son of a bitch was going to be there along with the _real_ Wards. I was gonna have to be face-to-face with him without punching said face. How the hell was I going to manage that?

Simple, I reminded myself. I was going to avoid hitting him because I knew that was exactly what Pigout _wanted_ me to do. She was itching for me to do something bad that didn't involve Emma so she could throw every book she could get her hands on at me. She was begging me to give her an excuse.

While I was changing, my phone rang on the bed. Stretching my arm out through the shirt hole so I could grab it, I answered without looking at the display, tugging the shirt down in the process. "What?"

It was Bryce. "Sophia? I mean, wait should I use the other name over the phone or what? I mean, what if it's not you that answers? But what if you're in costume and the person who answers your phone isn't you but only knows you as the other name? Wait, is this you? Prove it. We need a code phrase."

"Bryce," I ordered. "Shut the hell up. Wait, don't shut up. Tell me why you're calling."

"Are you coming over tonight?" He asked. Then I heard another muffled voice before he said, "I know, I know. I'm asking. Yes, I know. I got it." To me, he repeated, "So are you coming?"

"Wait," I frowned. "Is that Aisha with you? How long have you guys been over there?"

"All day," he answered distractedly. "We're going over her costume and stuff. She wants to get out there and practice with her power. So you better get over here soon."

Making a face, I finished pulling on my costume. "I can't right now. There's stuff I've gotta deal with."

"What?" Bryce blurted, sounding disappointed. "But we've been waiting all day. What's so important? Come on, you've gotta come over now. If you don't, we're just gonna have to go out there without you."

"No!" The word shot out of me faster than I could even think about it. "Listen to me, Bryce, you and Aisha sit right there. Neither of you go out without me. I will be there when I can, as soon as I'm done with the other stuff I have to do. But I swear, if either of you go out without me, I will put a stop to this. I will go straight to the authorities and let them know what's going on, and you'll both end up in the Wards where they can keep an eye and a leash on you. If you want to have a chance to get back at those assholes, you need to have some fucking patience. You _**wait**_ for me. Do you understand?"

There was silence briefly, before the boy replied petulantly, "You're not really a cape, you know."

That time, I didn't resist the growl that came. "Do not push me on this, Bryce. Do you understand?"

Finally, he sighed and spoke reluctantly. "Yeah yeah, we'll wait for you. I get it. Whatever, how long?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I'll be over there when I can. Just... I don't know, practice with her. Make sure she's ready to go out when I get there and we'll put the girl through her paces. But _until_ I get there, neither of you are to go out to do anything that involves cape stuff. Got it?"

The boy muttered an agreement before urging me to hurry, then got off the phone. Once the call had disconnected, I blew my breath out long and hard before quickly putting my shoes on.

As if I'd needed any more reason to wish that I didn't have Wards duty tonight. Now not only did I have to hope that I could get through it without cold-cocking Grue's stupid ass, I **also** had to pray that a couple of impatient teenagers would listen to me and stay put instead of going off on their own.

… Fuck, I hoped this didn't take too long.

* * *

To my surprise, it wasn't Piggot that was waiting in the Wards headquarters, but old Armsmaster himself. The leader of the local Protectorate was standing there with Prism, the blonde duplicating chick they'd brought in from New York awhile back, a little bit behind him. Meanwhile, the rest of the Wards were standing in a line a bit to their left. And to Armsmaster and Prism's right was... Grue. Everyone was in costume, and there was a fair bit of intense staring going on.

"Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster intoned loudly. "Good of you to join us. Line up with the others."

Shooting my own glare at the boy in his motorcycle helmet, I stalked over to stand next to Vista. Without looking at me, she edged away a step. Which just happened to put her closer to Gallant, of course. As if that little girl crush she had on the wannabe knight in shining armor would go anywhere. I didn't know if that blonde chick Victoria he was dating knew he was a Ward, but they seemed close.

"This," Armsmaster announced completely unnecessarily, "Is the young man you know as Grue. We asked him to wear this costume here today so that he could take it off in front of you. Because this will be the last time he wears this particular costume. He's getting a new one, and a new name. Grue will not exist after this point. Because Grue was a villain, and _this_ is his only chance to avoid what happens to villains." To the motionless boy himself, he asked, "Isn't that right?"

Grue remained silent briefly before his head dipped in a nod. The helmet muffled his voice. "Yeah."

"Right then," Armsmaster went on. "Rules. First," he looked to the rest of us. "You are about to learn the civilian identity of a _former_ villain. If **any** of you use that information in order to go after either him or any of his _former_ colleagues, you will be discouraging any more villains from switching sides. You will be convincing them that it's better to go to the Birdcage than take a chance in trying to change. And trust me when I say that if you do that, if any of you ruin this, I will make you regret it. As far as you are concerned, you just met this boy and he didn't **exist** before today. Is that understood?"

There were some mumbles of agreement, but Armsmaster waited until I gave a single nod before going on. "Go ahead," he said to Grue after giving me a pointed look. "It's only fair that you start. So go ahead and introduce yourself."

Grue stood still, then reached up to unlatch his helmet. He tugged it up and off, revealing the face of the boy I had loathed for so long, the face of the person whose power constantly fucked with mine, the fucking lowlife criminal who was getting a free pass into the Wards instead of prison.

I saw his face, and was immediately glad that I hadn't taken off my mask, because the sight of my open mouth probably would have made every last one of these motherfuckers double over laughing.

No. No, this wasn't right. Grue was ugly. He was a selfish, nasty little piece of work whose looks could only be _improved_ every time I punched his smug face. I knew what he was supposed to look like. I'd seen his face in my head so many times. It wasn't like this. He wasn't supposed to be... to be...

"Uh, hi." The boy shrugged. "I'm Brian. Sorry for, you know, anything that happened between us before. It wasn't personal or anything. I just... I've got family to take care of and made some choices that I probably shouldn't have. I hope we can put that behind us and move on." He stopped talking and gave what was a practically model-worthy smile.

Nooo nooo noo. No! This wasn't fair. This wasn't... he wasn't supposed to be... he was supposed to just... It was all I could do not to start sputtering out loud right then and there. Fuck, Grue looked... handsome. And not just sort of either, but _really_ handsome. He was all tall, dark skin, high cheekbones, perfect stature, it was... it was...

"Bullshit. This is some Grade-A _bullshit._ " Clockblocker announced emphatically. " **Hell** no. Uh uh. No fair. You turn around and march on out of here and don't you come back until you have the ugly face and the beady little eyes that we all know you're supposed to have."

"Uh," Further down the line, Chronicler raised a hand. "Just wondering, are the rest of us allowed to hire professional models to stand in for us, or is this just a one-time thing?"

"Oh, oh, oh!" Clockblocker was almost jumping up and down. "I got it, I got it. Do me a favor, stand right there and say, 'I'm on a horse.' Please? Pretty please?"

"If you're all _quite_ finished..." Armsmaster growled the words, waiting pointedly until there was silence. "Good. Now it's your turn. But first," he looked at Grue. Brian, whatever. "Let's make sure one thing is absolutely clear. If we ever have any indication that you are using the identities of the Wards or any other identity you happen to learn in a criminal manner, either returning to your previous ways or feeding the information to your old gang, you will be tossed in the Birdcage. No more strikes, no more chances. That will be a _**direct**_ violation of your probation and we will punt your ass directly into that hole that you'll never climb out of. Is _**that**_ clear?" Pointedly, he added, "And that includes anything you say on the phone, tell in person, or _type on your computer._ "

I thought that Grue flinched a little before nodding. "Perfectly clear, sir."

"Good," Armsmaster glanced toward Prism, then nodded to the rest of us. "Unmask, guys. Let's get these introductions out of the way."

One by one down the line, the others took their masks off and introduced themselves to our supposed new teammate. When it came down to my turn, I stood still and silent for a long moment while everyone, including Grue, stared at me.

Finally, I snorted and looked straight at Armsmaster. "When this goes wrong," I informed him, "I get to say I told you so." Then I shrugged and reached up to tug my mask off. Shaking my hair out, I stared at Grue, silently daring him to say anything. "I'm Sophia."

"Great," Armsmaster pushed on after the silence that followed my announcement. "Now that everyone knows each other, you can get better acquainted later. Right now, Brian here is going to go by a new name, because Grue is too... ahhh associated with the stuff we're hoping he leaves behind him. We won't be hiding his previous identity. His power is too specialized and distinctive for that. But we will be drawing a clear distinction between his old identity and the new one. From now on, you'll know him as Veil. Understood? Grue does not exist anymore. He's just Veil. We'll work on a press release as soon as possible, but right now we're hoping that a couple of you will volunteer to show him around. His new costume's in the back."

"Sure." That was Gallant, because of fucking course it was. "I'll help him out, show him what's going on."

Vista promptly raised her hand as well. "Oh, me too. I'll help Dean. I mean, help him with Gr—Brian. Veil, whatever. I'll help."

"Good," Armsmaster smiled humorlessly at that. "The two of you show him around, let him go out on a short patrol with you. Nothing too dangerous, just to get the idea of how we operate. The rest of you, whose turn it is for console duty?"

"Uh, me." Ben raised his hand and waved it. "It's my turn, sir."

"Right," Armsmaster turned to the rest of us. "Then Chronicler is on the console, while Vista and Gallant help _Veil._ Aegis, Stalker, Clockblocker, you guys know how to patrol, but we're going to stick you together so the three of you can work your way through the Merchants area and see if any of them stick their heads up after the pounding they got a few days ago. If you run into any problems, call it in. Other than that, do you have any questions?" There were none, and he gave a satisfied nod and made a dismissive gesture. "Good, then get to work."

I turned on my heel and left the room without even looking back. Clockblocker and Aegis could just catch up with me. Fuck, I needed to get out of this room so I could start thinking clearly again.

It didn't matter what they said or how much they changed his name or costume. Grue, or whatever he called himself, was a villain. He was a thug. No matter how handsome or charismatic he might have been, he was just a stupid fucking criminal. That was how things worked, it was how they had always worked. Wasn't it? Fuck, I hoped we really did run into some of those Merchant pieces of shit.

Because I really, really needed to punch someone.

 **6-04 – Madison**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

"Holy fuck!"

The loud and abrupt shout from across the living room made me jerk upwards with a yelp of surprise. In the process, the laptop that had been across my legs as I sat on the couch went flying toward the floor. In desperation, I grabbed for the computer, barely managing to snag it with two fingers.

Unfortunately, my power chose to read that desperation as outranking common freaking sense, and the second my fingers touched that laptop, it vanished into my personal storage dimension. Because of course it did. My life wasn't complicated enough as it was, I'd totally needed to show off my powers in front of my parents and older brother to really make everything that much more interesting. Crap.

Except, when I looked up with my face properly schooled into a look of total surprise and bewilderment about where the laptop could have gone (my go-to excuse was going to be static electricity and something to do with magnets), none of them were looking at me.

Both Trevor's and Dad's eyes were riveted to the television, while Mom was staring at my brother, finger raised in lecture mode. Her voice was loud. "Trevor! You don't scream those words at the top of your lungs. I don't care how old you are, have some common decency while you live under this roof."

"Right, right," Trevor replied without looking. "Wouldn't want to corrupt the family pet by making the poor little girl hear a bad word. She might do something stupid like-"

Dad elbowed Trevor to make him shut up before looking back. "That's enough, Trevor." He nodded back toward the television. "Trish, Maddy, both of you come look at this."

I joined my mother in walking up to see the television better. The four of us gathered around it and watched an overhead view from a helicopter of a car racing down a freeway, weaving in and out of traffic while avoiding at least half a dozen police cars both behind and ahead of it.

Frowning, Mom asked, "What movie are you watching?"

Beside me, Trevor rolled his eyes. "It's not a movie! Look, it's right outside Vegas. This is happening right now, like, for real. It's some kind of cape chase or something. One of those cars had—there!"

A truck that was ahead of the SUV that the news chopper was focused on slowed slightly. I saw a man in some kind of black and gray costume lean out the passenger side of the truck, aiming his hand back toward the SUV. Electricity gathered around his fist before shooting back at his target.

 **Somehow** , the driver of the SUV managed to spin their vehicle just right so that the bolt of electricity traveled through the open window on the passenger's rear side, and out the open window of the other side without ever touching the vehicle itself. It continued on, hitting the hood of the nearest pursuing cop car. As soon as it was hit by the electricity, the cruiser's lights went dead and it slowed to a stop.

As for the SUV, it did that single full 360 spin right there in the middle of the freeway, timed perfectly so that the bolt passed through exactly when the windows were lined up properly, and then continued its pursuit while barely losing any ground. Hell, it actually stopped one of their own pursuers.

"This has to be staged," Mom was saying emphatically. "It's Las Vegas, they're putting on a show. That has to be it. Not even a cape could do something like... like that. That's just ridiculous."

Trevor and Mom started arguing then about what was possible for capes to do, but I tuned both of them out as the phone in my pocket gave its happy little chirp notification. Digging it out, I found a message from Eric letting me know that something had come up and that I might want to join up with them.

Sending back a message that I was on my way, I put the phone back in my pocket and held up a hand. "Oh, I just remembered, I promised to meet Victoria and Amy so we could play mini golf."

Dad blinked at me. "Didn't you just get back from being at the mall with them a couple hours ago? And don't you want to see how the chase ends?" He gestured at the television.

The memory of standing there like an idiot while Emma stared at me, not knowing what I should say to the other girl, filled my head then. "Yeah," I said quietly, trying not to think about how awkward that had been. "They had to do something with their families first, but I guess they got done early. So I guess you'll have to tell me what happens with the chase. "

"Well, okay." Mom was giving me that look. "But you might want to think about that whole 'do something with your family' thing at some point too. And be back before eleven, it's a school night."

"I will!" I called back, already heading for the door. I didn't know what could have happened, considering Eric had been rather vague, but it had sounded important so I tried to hurry.

It was just too bad that I didn't know anyone who could drive like that person in Vegas had been. Then I could've gotten there _really_ quick. But then, Mom was probably right. It had to be a trick or something.

After all, no one could really drive like that.

* * *

As it turned out, the important development that Eric had texted me about was some kind of tip that Brandish had gotten out of an Empire thug that she'd shaken down after finding him snooping around some buildings in ABB territory. She'd convinced the man to explain what he was doing, and it wasn't good news. Apparently Kaiser was sending troops in to look for several ABB weapon caches in his attempt to both strengthen his own gang and to ensure that the ABB themselves continued to fall.

While letting the ABB fall apart and lose their weapons was a good thing, letting the _Empire_ get any stronger was most decidedly not. So they couldn't be allowed to get away with those weapons.

According to Brandish's unwilling snitch, Kaiser would be sending the capes in any minute to make the pick-ups. Which meant that we had to move quickly to get down there, to the point that everyone was already in costumee by the time I'd arrived and had to take the time to change clothes.

I'd felt embarrassed about the fact that everyone had been forced to wait for me to show up, especially when it was so important. But then again, I was the only member of the team who couldn't be called to battle by standing on the front porch and talking loudly. This was going to take some adjustment.

"Okay," Lady Photon spoke up once I had finished changing and rejoined them in the basement meeting room. "I'm going to talk fast here, if anyone has any questions or ideas, speak up." She waited for a second until everyone had nodded before continuing. "First, the Protectorate has been informed of the situation. They're going to be focused on Lung and keeping him from starting a brawl with the Empire when they show up in his territory. They're going to need to hit Lung as hard as they can to either put him down or keep his attention. Unfortunately, that means they will not be available to help us unless we really need it. The Wards are being kept out of the situation."

Stepping over to the model of Brockton Bay, she indicated the area that was ABB territory. "We're going to split up into groups to patrol the area and wait for the Empire to show their faces. Fleur, Manpower, and Shielder will cover this area around the north-east. Brandish will take Laserdream, Archive, and Seraph to cover the western area. And I'll take Lightstar, Panacea, and Flashbang to cover the south-west. Those are the areas that Kaiser had his thugs scouting out, so that's where we'll focus."

My pulse was racing, and I was glad that the visor that I was wearing helped disguise just how wide my eyes were. The Empire. The first time I'd seen them in action, I'd nearly gotten stepped on by one of the giant amazons. If Shielder and Fleur hadn't been there, my very first night out as a cape would have ended with me (and Sophia) being little more than jelly between Menja's toes. The idea of going out and waiting for them to show up was... scary.

Still, I needed to do this. I needed to help people. And if the Empire managed to get even more powerful than they already were by loading up on the ABB's weapons, probably including toys that Bakuda built, it could be really, really bad. So I couldn't back out because of fear. I had to deal with it.

Crystal nudged me. "Hey, don't worry. You've got me, Aunt Carol, and Victoria with you. It'll be okay."

I swallowed, nodding a little. "I... I'll be fine. Just kind of nervous, I guess."

"Hey, it's gonna be great!" Victoria piped up then, grabbing my hand and squeezing it firmly. "Seriously, Mads. You, me, Mom, and Crystal, we're gonna beat the Empire's asses until they're so black and blue they'll think their mommy's Oprah and their daddy's Papa Smurf."

Her words surprised a giggle out of me in spite of myself, while the touch of her hand made my stomach do those little flips of excitement that I still couldn't understand. For a moment, I forgot about how nervous I was and just focused on how friendly and welcoming these people had been. In the past few days, just spending time around Crystal, Victoria, Amy, and the rest was... fun.

The least I could do was be ready to pull my weight when something like this popped up. So I squeezed Victoria's hand back and forced my voice not to shake too much. "Right, we'll kick their asses."

"Damn straight we will," Victoria returned with a grin before raising her hand for a high five. When I gave it to her, she gave an exhilarating laugh. "Right, let's go pop some racist shit-pimples."

* * *

"Damn it, this sucks!"

An hour and a half later, Seraph hovered next to me on the roof of the warehouse where Brandish had chosen to set up. She floated back and forth, eyes scanning the road below impatiently. "Seriously, how do we just happen to end up picking the spot that the Empire is completely ignoring?"

She had a point. We'd barely arrived and taken our positions here on the roof before Fleur, Manpower, and Shielder had reported the arrival of Stormtiger, Cricket, and Alabaster. Then, not five minutes later, Hookwolf, Logi, Crusader, and the giant twins had very nearly taken Lady Photon, Lightstar, Panacea, and Flashbang by surprise. The two groups had been fighting running battles for the past forty minutes or so, providing running commentary about keeping the Empire capes occupied.

As for the four of us? Zilch. We hadn't even seen any ABB members hanging around. If there was a weapons stockpile anywhere around here, they were doing a _fantastic_ job of hiding it.

Spinning on her heel in the air to face the other end of the roof, where Laserdream and Brandish were, Seraph asked for about the fifth time, "Are we really just gonna sit here while the others fight?"

Without looking away from her careful examination of every car that passed by, Brandish answered her daughter, "Yes. They're okay so far. No one's been hurt. What if we leave now and the Empire grabs the weapons we were supposed to stop them from getting? People could die. So yes, we are going to stand here and watch until something else changes. There are still Empire capes unaccounted for."

Groaning, Victoria turned back to look down at the street, clearly desperate for a fight. "I hope they show the losers show their faces soon. What happened to the glory of the Empire, cowards?"

"My dear girl," an unexpected voice spoke up abruptly from the middle of the roof. "Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's rather rude to talk about someone behind their back?"

I spun around so fast that I nearly slipped off the edge of the roof. Beside me, Victoria jerked around as well. There, standing almost directly in between where we were and Brandish and Laserdream's position, stood Kaiser himself. The man was in full metal armor with sword-length blades sticking out of his gauntlets. Meanwhile, two rather massive and intimidating spikes of metal had risen up on either side of the man, framing his armored figure in a way that I immediately knew was purposeful. He was putting on a show while also giving himself cover to work with.

"Kaiser," Brandish spat the name like an epithet. "Where the hell did you come from?" While she spoke, the woman had already conjured an energy sword into one hand.

In response, the leader of the Empire Eighty-Eight simply inclined his head. "Perhaps there are secrets that even someone as experienced as you remain blissfully ignorant of, Brandish. Then again, considering that this legion of capes of yours appears to consist entirely of the proper race, we may not be that different after all. Tell me, are they right when they say that you are all the same family, or do we perhaps have certain similar ideologies that you aren't quite ready to admit in public?"

Brandish actually snarled at that. "You're a freak that belongs in the Birdcage. Laserdream, Archive, support. Seraph, with me." With that said, she lunged at the man, bringing her energy blade up.

At the same time, Laserdream shot up into the air, sending out a single laser that pulverized one of the metal spikes that the man had erected next to himself. He created another wall out of the remains, using it to cover himself from Crystal's follow-up volley.

And from beside me, Seraph launched herself forward as well. Two holographic versions of the other girl appeared, one on either side of her, and all of them drew a bright, golden sword that they swept down at the stationary man.

Brandish came in low with a cut toward Kaiser's right leg, while Seraph and her two solid-light companions came in from above. The man had four different energy blades coming at him, while Laserdream floated high overhead, peppering his defensive structure with blasts.

Remembering belatedly that I was supposed to be a part of this, I pushed myself into a sprint. If I could get rid of the metal that he was using to protect himself from Laserdream, she might get a good shot in.

Almost as one, the four of us came at the man, who stood completely still, waiting for us. At the last second, before he would have been hit, Kaiser abruptly pivoted on one foot. The blade attached to his right arm swept up, catching all three of Seraph's descending blades. As soon as the solid-light constructs were caught on his blade, the man sent a pillar of metal launching itself out of the blade that sent Victoria and her energy clones clear to the other side of the roof before she knew what was happening. I barely managed to avoid being clipped by one of them by diving forward.

At the same time, the blade from the man's left arm smacked Brandish's attack aside. She followed up with a flurry of attacks, constantly shifting her weapon from sword to staff to mace and any other melee weapon in the book to take the man by surprise, changing hands as often as she changed weapons.

Yet through it all, Kaiser not only kept up with her, he was also able to continually adjust the metal of his defensive structure to protect himself from Laserdream. The son of a bitch even sent a couple spikes into the air, forcing Crystal onto the defensive.

I needed to do my part. I had to get in there and take away the metal that the man was using. Grimacing, I picked myself up from my dive and ran another three steps before leaping straight at the nearest of the man's metal pillars. Just before I would have smacked into it, I activated my power. The metal pillar was sheered perfectly in half as my figure passed right through it, and I leapt to catch as much of the top as I could to give Laserdream a clear shot.

She took the opening immediately, sending a pair of lasers straight at Kaiser's back while he was committed to deflecting Seraph's renewed charge.

Even then, the man acted as if he'd seen it coming. He twisted aside at the last instant, shaping the metal of one of his blades around Seraph's own blade. Before the girl could dismiss it, he yanked her into the path of the laser, and she was sent to the ground with a cry.

Infuriated, Brandish came at the man with an almost blindingly rapid series of attacks. Ten strikes in, the man deflected her latest blow, then twisted to elbow the woman in the back of the head. While she stumbled, he came all the way around, planting his foot in the middle of her back to send her sprawling.

By that time, however, I'd realized the mistake that I'd made. I shouldn't be focusing on the spikes of metal that the man was using as cover. I should be focusing on the man himself.

To that end, I spread both arms wide and called out for his attention. "Heeeeey, do we really have to fight about this?" When the man turned toward my voice, I grinned at him. "Come on, Uncle Godwin, let's just hug it out." Then I lunged for the man, activating my field while clamping myself around him.

He tried to hit me with his blade, but the metal vanished into my field. A second later, his other blade followed suit. Then I was holding onto the man as the bottom half of his armor vanished beneath my grip.

"Huh," I spoke a moment later. "Kaiser's a boxers guy. Gotta say, I didn't see that coming."

Laserdream took advantage of the opening and shot another handful of lasers straight at the man. This time, one of them struck home. I heard and smelled sizzling flesh as Kaiser gave a sharp cry of pain. His hand lashed out at my face, and I used my field one more time. Fortunately, that took care of the metal so his blow didn't give me a concussion. Unfortunately, the hand underneath that metal was still pretty damn strong, and I took the blow to the side of the head, making me stumble sideways.

Kaiser took advantage of that. His hand caught my arm, and he hoisted me up while I yelped.

"You'll do." His confusing words were flat before he spun and threw me into the air and toward the edge of the roof.

"Archive!" As I went flying, Laserdream shouted and dove through the air to catch me. My flight was halted as the other girl grabbed me under both arms, and both of us took a second to recover.

It was too long of a second. Kaiser was already moving. He plucked _something_ off the ground, a ball of some kind. Then he turned and took three steps sideways to avoid Brandish while chucking that ball straight at Laserdream and me.

"Down!" I shouted, focusing on absorbing the thing as it drew near.

Except the thing didn't reach us. Before it came close enough for my field to grab it, the orb stopped. I had a glimpse of something in it opening, before there was a flash of blindingly bright white light. I heard Brandish scream Laserdream's name, but it was faint.

The world spun around me, and I felt Laserdream's hands slip before I fell forward to land on the... carpeted floor? What the hell?

My vision cleared, and I found myself lying half-sprawled in some carpeted room with wood paneling. Hearing a dull thud followed by a sharp cry behind me, I rolled over to see Crystal's unconscious form slump down.

The figure standing over her turned my way, and I saw Victor. "Two for one?" He said with a shrug. "Great, welcome to the Empire."

Then his fist lashed down, and I knew nothing beyond that for some time.

 **6-05 – Sophia**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

The skeleton-thin woman backed away from me. Her eyes, sunk deep into a drug-ravaged face, were wide with fear. Dirt and worse mingled with scars to further mar features that at one point half a decade ago might have been considered pretty by some people. Now, with skin the consistency of aged jerky and fewer remaining teeth than an average newborn, she was the rotting apple to her youth's crisp fruit.

"No. No, no, no, see, you can't. I ain't that type, I ain't. This ain't me, you see? It ain't me. I ain't no bad one, I ain't no bad one." As she continued to backpedal down the alley away from me, the woman babbled pathetically. "Please, I ain't meaning to do any of this. I gotta get it together, I know. I know."

Letting my heavy black coat gather and billow around me in a way that had taken me months to get right, I walked slowly toward the druggie loser. She wasn't going anywhere. The alley she'd fled down was a dead end. "You tried to rob that gas station." I kept my voice pitched into a low, gravel tone.

"I know, I know," the woman babbled. "Bad, it was bad, I know. But you don't understand. I was desperate. So desperate, I had to do it. They wouldn't give me none of my stuff. You don't know what it's like. I gotta have it. I been trying to kick it, but this week just been hard, you see? I wasn't gonna hurt nobody. I wasn't. That was all Denny and Tommy. All them. I just need my stuff. Just need it, see?"

Denny and Tommy. Those were obviously the two men that the woman had been in the gas station with when Clockblocker, Aegis, and I had come across them trying to rob the place. The trio had split up after sprinting out the back door away from us, so we'd done the same. I'd chased my target about two blocks before cornering her here in the alley where she had started babbling about needing her stuff.

"You had a gun," I growled the words, watching the fear in her eyes as she finally reached the end of the alley and realized she had nowhere else to go. She was trapped like a pitiful rat. Worse, because she didn't even try to escape or fight. She just cowered and babbled about how sorry she was. Pathetic.

"I'm sorry, I know I'm bad. I know," she whined morosely, tears in her eyes. "But I wasn't gonna hurt nobody. I wasn't gonna hurt 'em. I just, I'm scared, and I can't be without my stuff. I can't. It hurts. And I don't got the gun no more. You saw that. You saw me drop it back there. I ain't got no gun no more."

Worthless. Pathetic. Useless. Whiny. The words flooded my brain and I felt the anger rise in me with each repetition. The more the woman cowered and whined, the angrier I got. Grue, a fucking villain, was playing Ward. I couldn't think straight. The rage just kept mounting, building up in me while I stalked straight toward the cringing little coward. She still hadn't stopped whimpering and apologizing.

Ignoring the crossbows on my hips and the zip tie cuffs in my pocket, I drew my hand back once I reached the woman. Fingers tightening, I glared, feeling all that frustration gather itself into my fist.

Bitch. Angsty little whiny bitch. Useless coward. Wouldn't even try to fight back. Nothing but a useless little wimp. No one cared about her. No one gave a shit. She didn't know what hard really was. Growling under my breath, I waited for the bitch to peek up at me. Then I lashed out with that fist. She had no fucking clue, and she was pissing away her damn life over these stupid ass drugs. Pathetic loser.

A girl's face, streaked with tears yet too scared to vocally protest. Resignation to her inevitable fate. Cowering, hiding and whining about how unfair it was. A locker. Blood. So much blood.

In mid-swing, I stopped abruptly. My fist hovered there, so close to the woman's face that if I hadn't been wearing my gloves, I would have felt her breath on my fingers. My other hand was squeezed into just as tight of a fist as well, though it stayed down at my side. For a few seconds, I just stood there with my fist inches from this woman's ugly face, rigid with anger that I couldn't let out.

Why? Why couldn't I just fucking punch her? She deserved it. It wasn't like she was innocent. For fuck's sake, she'd tried to rob that gas station. She was a loser that had clearly been on drugs for years. She wasn't contributing anything to society, and society in turn owed her nothing. She was, in a word, prey. She was prey, and I was a predator. All she could do was cower there, whining and crying. I needed to punch something. I desperately wanted to punch this stupid, whiny little bitch to shut her up.

But I didn't. The tension in my shoulders grew to almost unbearable levels while I stood there with my fist raised. Yet slowly, gradually, I lowered it and straightened myself. My frustration wasn't abated. If anything, it was worse. The anger in me had no outlet, nowhere to go, and forcing myself not to punch this useless piece of shit didn't magically make me feel better. I just felt even _more_ annoyed.

When I spoke, my voice was so dark and angry that I barely recognized it myself. "Turn around." I waited until the frightened woman had done so, still pleading with me to understand that she wasn't bad, she just needed her 'stuff.' Then I grabbed both of her wrists and forced them together with one hand while taking the zip tie out. My hands were shaking from my anger, and it was all I could do to force it onto the woman's wrists before pulling it tight. I stopped just short of cutting off her circulation, then spun her around with a hand on her shoulder. The sight of her face pissed me off yet again, and I very nearly raised my fist again. My body language must have advertised how close to the edge I was, because the woman fell silent and just stared at me with that quivering, pock-marked lip.

With effort, I took one step to the side before yanking the woman's arm. "Walk," I told her through gritted teeth. "Just start fucking walking. I swear to Scion, if you try to run again, I'll break your legs."

She took a step and I turned to go with her, shoving the useless woman to make her go faster instead of dawdling. Then I looked up, past the woman to the head of the alley. It wasn't empty anymore. There was a figure standing there watching us. I belatedly recognized him, a half second after my hand had strayed toward one of my crossbows, and a half second _before_ I would have actually drawn it.

"Aegis," I spat the name while giving the woman another shove since she had stopped to stare. "What the hell do you want? Don't you have your own prisoner to drag in?" The anger still hadn't dissipated.

The boy in the rust-red and silver costume waited until we had reached him before answering. "Already done. Thought you might want some help getting yours back. Unless you'd rather walk her?" He sounded awkward then, and there was something akin to surprise in his voice that I didn't understand.

Shaking my head, I gave the woman a hard shove toward him. "Whatever. Take her, I don't care."

Aegis made a noise like he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a voice coming through both of our comms. "Wards, cease all operations." It was Armsmaster, and he sounded even more tense than usual. "Repeat, cease all operations. Code Vikare. Return to base immediately."

"Code Vikare?" Aegis repeated the man's words while staring at me. I couldn't see his face through the helmet, but I imagined what it looked like in that moment. "Did I hear him right?"

"That's what he said," I grunted, trying to think through the confusion. Vikare was the code used for a hero being killed in action, particularly when death wasn't expected. They didn't tend to use it in times like Endbringer attacks or whatever, since people _expected_ lots of death then. Usually it was reserved for seemingly ordinary nights that got way out of hand, and when it was invoked, it meant that Wards were to immediately get off the streets because something much worse than usual was happening.

"But who-" Aegis started before shaking his head. Clearly he'd realized that he wasn't going to get any answers that way. Instead, he took the woman by the arm. "I'll fly her over to the others. Stay with me. We'll drop her off, call the PRT, then head in and see if we can find out what the hell is going on." After pausing a second, he added, "Don't run off, okay? We'll meet up with Clockblocker and go in together."

I rolled my eyes at that before starting to walk around him. "Yes, Professor Aegis. Just go, I'm coming."

He took off, and I ran forward before launching myself into a leap, shifting to my shadow-state in order to get further and higher. The whole time, I kept asking myself two equally important questions. First, who had they called Vikare for? And second, why the hell did I care so much about that first question?

* * *

Two hours later, I was back in my street clothes, stepping off the bus just down the street from Bryce's house. After hopping down, I started to jog, praying that both of those little shits had actually listened to my order to stay put and _**wait**_ for me. The thought of how unlikely that was made me run faster.

As it turned out, none of the Wards or Protectorate had been the cause for the order to stop patrolling. Instead, it was the Brockton Bay Brigade who had lost not just one member, but two. Laserdream and that new girl they had recruited, the one that Aegis claimed had tried to save me from Menja, had both been killed in action by Kaiser. Apparently he had thrown some kind of grenade that vaporized them.

Dead. Two heroes, one of them not even a week into her career, while the other had been around for years by this point. Both of them killed in an instant, their bodies turned to ash.

The only positive part was that Lady Photon had finally stopped holding back. Apparently she'd become so utterly enraged that she'd completely atomized Kaiser himself in retaliation. According to Chronicler, who had been watching on the monitor by that point, the volley of energy blasts that the pissed off woman had levied hadn't just destroyed the man himself, but a good chunk of the building that he had been standing on. There had barely been enough left of him to identify as a person before it crumbled apart. And yet Lady Photon had apparently just continued pummeling the spot where his body had been until she'd been dragged away by other members of the Brigade.

Well, members other than Seraph. _**She**_ had apparently launched herself into some kind of kamikaze run against every gang member within a dozen blocks, and it had taken the combined efforts of the Protectorate to make the girl stop. They were going to hold her until she calmed down, but Brandish had shown up and pitched some kind of fit until they let Seraph go. Then the two of them had taken off.

Long story short, the city was fucked up and everyone was pissed off. Armsmaster ordered everyone, me especially, to stand down and come back tomorrow. He deliberately and pointedly made me swear to him that I had absolutely no intention of going out as Shadow Stalker again that night, to the point of making me say the words. It was, naturally, a promise that I made without reservation. Because after all, I really _didn't_ intend to go out as Shadow Stalker. Now _Hinder_ on the other hand, hadn't come up.

Jogging down the alley behind Bryce's house, I slipped into the weed-filled back yard through the crack in the fence and moved to the garage. I still had yet to actually see his parents, and Bryce hadn't said much about them other than the fact that they were still dealing the aftermath of his sister's death.

Reaching the garage, I heard muffled voices, but couldn't make out what was being said. I raised my hand and knocked on the door, then stood there and stared directly at the surreptitiously placed garden gnome in the nearby flower bed that the boy had placed an old camera inside of to function as part of his security system. The gnome stared back at me, and a second later I heard a beep from the door.

Opening it, I stepped inside to find Bryce and Aisha. Both were, by some miracle, actually still present. Bryce had grease and what looked like soot over his face, while Aisha, whose sense of style was clearly meant as a declaration of war against every person in the world who wasn't color-blind, had two of her little imps hopping around the shop. One of them was made of cement, while the other looked like water. There was a wood one perched on her shoulder that promptly decided that the most constructive use of its time was to bend over and wave its backside at me.

" _There_ you are!" Bryce was clearly exasperated. Tough. "What was so important? Do you have any idea what we've been missing because of you? The Brigade is going completely bugshit out there for some reason." He gestured to the television and the police scanner in the corner of the garage. "At last count, they fucking brought down every last standing ABB member that isn't a cape, _**and**_ Krieg from the Faithful. You know, 'Worthless Racist Shits: The Expansion Pack.'"

That I hadn't heard. "Krieg? What does Krieg have to do with any of this?"

"Fuck if I know," he replied. "I guess he was in their way at the time and-" Slamming his fist into his palm, the boy grinned. "They took that motherfucker down. The news said Battery and Assault had to pry Manpower off him or he would've choked the bastard to death. Too bad they didn't just let it happen, you know?" He paused then. "I wonder what pissed the Brigade off so much."

"A couple of the heroes were killed by Kaiser," I answered quietly, feeling strange about saying that out loud. Explaining something like this to these two, telling them about what had happened should have felt so routine by this point, but instead it felt... wrong. Which was weird, because it wasn't like either of them were strangers to the ugliness of the world. They, more than most, clearly understood.

"Huh?" Aisha turned to me suddenly. "What do you mean? Who—who died? How do you know?" There was something serious to her tone, a note in it that I couldn't place. Even the wood imp on her shoulder stopped mooning me and stared from its bent over position.

"Laserdream and the new one in the Brigade," I replied. "I don't remember her name." The Brigade had announced it over PHO, and Clockblocker had talked about the girl a little bit. But I paid absolutely no attention to the former, and only slightly more to the latter. "And I heard some cops talking about it."

"Laserdream? Fuck. Are you serious? Those two are, oh man... I..." Bryce went silent, looking shaken for a second before shaking his head. "So... so Kaiser really killed two teenage capes? On purpose?"

I shrugged. "I don't think the tinker-grenade he threw at them was supposed to shower them with backrubs and blo-" I stopped short and coughed. "... baloney sandwiches."

From the look that both of them gave me, neither bought that. Aisha rolled her eyes and held her hands out out until the cement imp hopped up into them. "So the leader of a bunch of Nazis did something fucking horrible. Yeah, totally shocking news there."

"Lady Photon killed him for it," I informed the pair of them.

"No shit!?" Bryce jumped at that. "She took out that racist piece of shit? Like, really dead? He's gone? That cocksucker's really gone? Fuck yeah! I wish I could've seen it. Hey, do you think they got video it?"

"I doubt they'll play it over the news if they did," I pointed out mildly. "That's not really something they're allowed to show."

"Still, I bet I could make something to grab that footage if they did get it and stick it up on a big billboard somewhere..." Bryce's tone was thoughtful, and I could see his mind wandering off into tinker-land.

"Hey, dork," Aisha smacked him in the shoulder. "We're focusing on me right now, remember?"

Rubbing his arm, the boy shrugged. "Right, fine, yeah." To me, he said, "We've been working on a costume for Imps all day."

"Imp," Aisha corrected.

It was obviously an ongoing argument. Bryce recited, "I told you, Imps sounds better. You're making multiple ones, not just one. You know, plural, many, Imps."

"Don't care." Aisha's reply was airy and dismissive. "I like Imp better. It suits me."

"Fine, whatever." Throwing both hands up in exasperation, Bryce focused on me again. "We've got the costume for **Imp** ready. You guys wanna head out and test it? If Kaiser's dead, we gotta hit the Empire while they're reeling. Really smash those fucks apart. Shit, I can't believe they actually killed that fucker. Can I be happy and pissed off too? I wanted to see it. I wanted to see that fucker suffer." Shaking that off, he grinned. "Come on, get your costumes and get out there. Those Nazi shits aren't gonna know what hit 'em."

"Hey, whoa." Aisha shook her head. "First we need an actual name. A _group_ name. Otherwise we're gonna end up getting called something shitty."

"A team name?" I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, barely. I did know that what you called yourself was important, though I'd never had to think about a _team_ name before. "Like what?"

"Asskickers?" Bryce suggested. "Is that taken already?"

"Pffft, gotta be." Aisha waved a hand dismissively. "Besides, I've got a better idea."

She told us what her idea was. Neither Bryce or I had any better suggestions than that, so we went with it.

After all, when it came to a team whose primary goal was to lead to the end of every single Nazi, it was hard to come up with a much better name than Normandy.

 **6-06 – Madison**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

Like rising from the bottom of the pool after trying to beat my brother's record for holding his breath, I jerked upwards abruptly and sucked in a deep lungful of air. I felt confused, disoriented. Where was I? The memory within my sleep-fogged brain was slow to return for a few seconds while my distracted mind tried to work out why I wasn't home in my bed, and why I felt instinctively panicked.

It came back to me a moment later. The fight with Kaiser, that bright light, then appearing in that carpeted room with Victor. The way Crystal had been laying there after he'd struck her.

Attempting to lunge to my feet proved to be a mistake, as I staggered over onto my side instead and tried to convince my stomach that throwing up was a very bad idea that should be avoided. I bet Legend never had to worry about puking Lucky Charms over the villainous mastermind's secret lair.

"You might wanna take a minute or two," a female voice spoke with a note of minor amusement. "You know, before you start in with the heroic escape shit. Might work out better for you that way."

Blinking my eyes open and looking across what looked like a small motel room, I found myself staring at a figure in a red and black robe, with a mask covering the lower half of her face that explained the somewhat muffled quality of her voice. I knew her. Not personally, obviously, but from the news.

"Rune?" I blinked a couple times, then forced myself the rest of the way up. It wasn't easy, and my stomach tried to rebel again, but I kept it down and focused on raising my fists instead of collapsing.

"Oh, the rookie hero knows my name." Rune brought both gloved hands together in a slow clap before tapping two fingers against the simple armchair that sat beside the door she was standing in front of. "Why don't you," she started before gesturing with that hand. The chair slid across the room before stopping beside me as she continued. "Have a seat and get comfortable. You're gonna be here awhile."

I tried not to jump as the chair slid toward me, resisting the urge to do my own showing off by vanishing it. "Right, you're the Empire's telekinetic." If I remembered right, she had to actually touch something before she could move it with her mind, but after that, she could make it move anywhere in sight. I wasn't sure how much weight she could move or how long it lasted after she touched an object before she could no longer manipulate it. And I couldn't remember whether she could move a person or not. I was thinking not, but it seemed like that sort of knowledge might be important pretty soon.

"And you're Archive," the other girl replied. "The brand spiffy new Brigade cape." Rune folded both arms over her chest while regarding me. "Heh, Victor was right, I really am taller than you."

Great, another person pointing out how small I was. Grimacing, I changed the subject. "The Empire sure has a funny way of inviting someone over. Let me guess, you needed to bolster your bowling league roster and decided that Craigslist was full of too many crazy racists even for you guys?"

I was scared, obviously. My mind was racing while I looked around the room. Part of me wanted to just turn around and run straight through the opposite wall. It wasn't like anything Rune could do would stop me from just activating my field and going right through every wall in my path.

But I didn't know what was going on. I had no idea where I was, or where Laserdream had been taken. And I couldn't keep my field up forever. Sooner or later, either it would drop or something that could get through it would hit me. Then I'd be back where I'd started. No, I didn't know how much the Empire knew about what I could do, so it was best to keep as much as I could secret until the right time.

Rune raised an eyebrow. I caught a hint of blonde hair behind her hood as she tilted her head as if reconsidering me. "Jokes? Maybe Kaiser was wrong. He said you were new to all this, but you sure don't seem very afraid of the fact that you've been captured by the big, evil Nazi organization."

The truth was that I was almost petrified. But to hell if I was going to tell _her_ that. Instead, I made a show of clapping a couple times. "Ooh, the E word. Very good, the first goal of any rehabilitation effort is to admit you have a problem. So tell me, when did you first realize you were an Evil Nazi?"

"When I got my picture in the paper with the headline 'New Cape Joins Nazis'" Rune replied dryly. "I've got a copy pinned up in my bedroom." After another second, the masked girl asked, "So, you planning on starting a fight or what?" Nodding to my fists, she added, "Who knows, you might get away. I mean, I'm not sure how your power works exactly, but you might make it. Except..."

I lifted my chin. "Except I don't know where Laserdream is. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share?"

Rune's mouth was covered by that half-mask, but I was pretty sure she smiled in amusement. "Nice try, but no. See, she's nowhere around here. So you can focus on escaping, but if you manage it, she might get hurt. And you know, vice versa if she manages to escape from wherever she happens to be."

"How can you be like this?" I asked while staring at the other girl. "We're probably about the same age. How could you talk about that sort of thing so casually, like abduction and murder are normal?"

She held up two fingers. "A: you'd be surprised what becomes normal really god damn fast when you have powers. And B: fuck you. If you like, I could leave and send in one of the old guys to keep you company. Maybe Hookwolf or Logi could fit your mental image of what an evil piece of shit Nazi is supposed to look like. Just say the word and I'll bounce out of here so fast your head'll spin."

The thought of being alone with either of those two men, or any of the other monsters that called themselves members of the Empire Eighty-Eight made me blanch while a trickle of fear ran down my spine, and I held up both hands quickly while shaking my head. "No, no. That's okay."

Hesitating while she continued to stare at me, I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to think. "Why am I here? And where is here? And... and what do you guys want from me? You left my visor on."

"Yeah, we did," she replied flatly. "And it's staying on unless you take it off. At some point in the future, if you don't go and piss us off too much, you might make it home. If you do, try to remember that we didn't break the rules. We're not going to hurt you unless you act like a bitch too much and don't do what you're told. And we're not going to unmask you, _**or**_ let you see any of us unmasked. Got it?"

That... made a sort of sense, I supposed. They'd abducted us, but as long as they were set on not letting us see their faces, it meant that they actually _did_ plan on releasing us at some point. After all, there was no reason to keep secrets from someone that you had no intention of ever leaving alive.

I relaxed marginally then. "What about the rest of it? Why did you take us? What do you guys want?"

Rune snorted, rolling both shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "Nothing from you. Well, aside from making a good hostage. Kaiser was after the other one. You just happened to be there."

"He wanted Laserdream?" I echoed, blinking in surprise. "But why would he go through all this to abduct her?" She had a nice assortment of powers with her lasers, forcefields, and flight, along with the experience and skill to use them. Laserdream was a obviously great cape. But there was nothing she had that Kaiser couldn't get in other ways without calling down the kind of violence that abducting a member of the Brigade would cause. There had to be something more to it, but what?

"Oh. Oh no. Oh woe is the evil that lay within my blackened heart." Rune's voice was thick with sarcasm while she waved both hands dramatically. "For you have invoked the request that I explain every detail of our dastardly evil plan. Clearly there is no possible way for me to resist such power. Damn the irresistible urge to monologue incessantly in ways that tell the hero everything they need to know the very second they look like they're helpless. Damn it to all the hells of—oh, right. Fuck you."

"You could've just said 'no'," I pointed out mildly. "So I guess the monologuing thing isn't _too_ far off."

Rune shrugged then. "Eh, fair point." Waving a hand dismissively, she asked, "So you gonna be nice and calm like a good girl or do we have to do that whole fighting thing? Because I'm not in the mood."

"I'm not deciding anything until you prove that Laserdream is all right." I managed to get the words out without stuttering. I even managed to sound firm and in control. Points to me. "I mean, you could just be _saying_ all that. I want to talk to her. I need to know that you guys didn't..." I trailed off.

"What, kill the uppity bitch?" Rune's eyes rolled. "Whatever, we figured you'd need that much. Hold on." Reaching into her robe, the girl withdrew a cell phone and pressed a single button on it. She held it to her ear and waited for a few seconds before saying, "She's awake, put the other one on."

Turning the phone around then, she held it up so that I could see the screen. It showed Laserdream standing there in a simple room with a cement floor and brick walls. Nothing identifiable.

"Archive," the older girl spoke as soon as she focused on the screen. I assumed whoever was keeping her company was holding their phone much like Rune was holding hers out for me. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I replied, relieved that Crystal didn't look hurt. "Do you know what they want? Do you-"

The screen went black, then to the phone's home screen. Rune tucked it away. "That's enough of that. You've got your proof. The cheerleader's just peachy. But like I said, she's nowhere near here. So if you leave, she gets hurt. If she leaves, you get hurt. If both of you sit tight and do what you're told, everything'll be just fine. Might be awhile before you can go home, but it'll happen eventually."

Before I could respond to that, there was a knock at the door. Rune opened it, and I saw Kaiser standing in the doorway. He was back in his full suit of armor. Either he had a replacement or he just used his power to create them. "Ah, good. I trust you've informed Miss Archive of the current situation?"

"Heya, Big K." I waved, forcing myself not to let the man see how afraid I was. To that end, I continued, "You know, I almost didn't recognize you with your pants on."

I saw Rune's shoulders jerk a little as if she was restraining a snicker. Before Kaiser could speak, she spoke with a dismissive reply. "She gets it. Had a nice chat with the other one too, so everyone's on the same page. But you're going to have to send someone else up to take my place. I'm fucking starving."

"Impossible." Kaiser was shaking his head. "We moved everything ahead of time before we kicked that hornets nest, but I'm afraid all of our people are still occupied setting things up in the new locations. I don't want any of our forces on the streets while the Brigade is on the warpath. We lay low for now."

Something about the man's voice made me frown. I couldn't place it, but there was something almost familiar about it, something tickling at my memory that wouldn't quite come through. Or maybe my brain was just inventing things because I was in so much trouble.

"So you mean I'm stuck here babysitting. Again." Rune sounded bitter, and pointed a finger at the man. "Burgers. You want me to stay, I need burgers, fries, the works. And milkshakes. Like I said, starving."

"That can be arranged," Kaiser looked to me. "What would you like to eat? I promise you, it will be quite safe. We can't release you yet, but we will do everything possible to ensure your comfort."

"And if I Princess and the Pea it to say the absolute only place I'm comfortable is standing in the middle of the Protectorate headquarters?" I asked before waving a hand. "Meh, worth a shot."

"Fuck it, I'm writing this shit down." Rune decided. "You got something for that?" She waited until Kaiser reached into that armor of his and withdrew a small pad of paper and a fancy looking pen. After he handed them to her, she started scribbling out a food order. "Don't you skimp either. I didn't join this crew to play babysitter. You want me to keep this shit up, I need premium fuel."

She finished writing and then gave the pen and pad a toss vaguely my direction. They corrected their flight midway, hovering just in front of me until I reached out and took them.

"Whatever you'd like," Kaiser informed me. "It is, after all, the least we can do."

Part of me wanted to play the stoic hero and refuse to eat anything my captors offered. That sort of felt like what I _should_ do. But the truth was, Rune wasn't the only hungry one there. My stomach was threatening a mutiny if I even seriously **considered** turning down the offer of food. And I was pretty sure even Brockton Bay wasn't prepared for a not-yet-sixteen-year-old girl's stomach running amok in the streets bitching about how its former owner was a paranoid freak.

Huh. Among other things, apparently being kidnapped made my thought processes even _stranger._

Shaking that off, I set the paper down on the nearby desk and began to scribble out my own order under Rune's rather extensive one. Jeeze, if she actually ate all that food, I wondered how she managed to stay as fit as she clearly was under that robe.

… huh. Yeah, definitely weird kidnapped thoughts.

Just as I finished writing out what I wanted to eat, a strange, sort of robotic monotone voice spoke up from behind Kaiser, out in the hallway beyond this small motel-like room. "So, is she doing it or what?"

Kaiser turned, and I saw a woman standing there. She wore a gas mask that was clearly altering her voice, as well as goggles with red lenses in them. She was also tapping her foot impatiently. "Well?" Again she spoke in that strange voice from the gas mask. "Is the bitch charging my baby up yet?"

"Bakuda," Kaiser sounded annoyed, his voice strained. "I was just on my way to talk to you. Come, let's discuss how the project is going." He held his hand out, and Rune made the paper with the order float into it. Then he gave both of us a nod. "Your food will be on its way shortly, I promise."

With that said, he walked back into the hall, and the door closed behind him just as Bakuda was saying something about her pay doubling if he wanted everything he was asking for.

Bakuda was... working _with_ Kaiser? How did that work? She was obviously Asian, and now she was just doing mercenary work for one of the biggest white supremacist groups in the country? What the hell was going on?

"You got a problem?" Rune demanded. Apparently I'd been staring off into space for awhile.

"No," I lied. I had a really big problem. I had to get out of there. Because whatever Kaiser was up to, it clearly involved Bakuda's 'baby', and I was willing to bet that the 'bitch' that was supposed to be charging it somehow was Laserdream. I had no idea what they were doing, but I was pretty damn sure that anything that the head of the Empire Eighty-Eight was willing to work with a member of the ABB to make happen was something the rest of the city really **didn't** want to happen.

"Good, so sit down already." Rune gestured at me. "I don't feel like yammering. Besides," The remote to the nearby television rose into her hand and she flicked it on. "Maybe you'll get to see them talking about how dead you are."

"Dead?" I echoed, eyes widening.

"Yuuup," she drawled the word out extensively. "City thinks you and the cheerleader got blown up. So when you show up again, you can surprise all the dumb fucks."

Sitting down at the desk a little heavily, I swallowed. Dead. Did that mean that Mom and Dad were going to know what I had been doing? What would the Brigade tell them? What... what were they going to do? Oh god, if they thought I was dead, they thought Crystal was dead too. Poor Mrs. Pelham... and Mr. Pelham, and everyone else. How were they coping?

I was scared. Here I was, alone in the middle of Nazi central, and I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. I felt lost and completely out of my depth.

Absently, I laid my hand over the pen that Kaiser had left behind. A second later, it vanished, absorbed through my field.

I began to sense how the pen had been used. I felt the way I had written out my own list for the food order, then the way that Rune had written out her own order.

Gradually, I felt other things being written. Memos that I didn't understand, a quick note about appropriating funding for something called Project Mimoyecques, and some other random scribbles.

Then I felt something else, a name being written out. No, signed. It was a signature, written with the broad flourish of one who did such things often. The name was Max Anders.

My mouth fell open while I sat there, stunned. That was why Kaiser had seemed so familiar. Crystal and I had _both_ talked to Anders just the other day after Trainwreck and Chariot had tried and failed to break into the Medhall building.

Max Anders **was** Kaiser.

And I'd thought that pharmaceutical companies were evil _before._

 **6-07 – Taylor**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

The keys to the literal fleet of vehicles that were parked in the garage were hung on a peg board near the door. It didn't take long for Spitfire to grab one of the remotes off of the hook and press a button until an answering honk from the end of the garage announced which vehicle they belonged to.

"Come on, come on, let's go." Spitfire gestured rapidly at the waiting SUV before hitting the button beside the peg board that started lifting the garage door. Mockshow was already running that way, and I followed after her while tugging Elle by the hand. Not that I really needed to, since the idea of Faultline and the others being in trouble had left the girl as focused as I'd ever seen her.

Mockshow had split off to admire one of the other nearby cars, and Spitfire shouted her name while I was busy helping Elle up into the back. "Mockshow, come on! Time is kind of important right now!"

"No shit!" The other girl retorted while climbing up into the passenger side. "So get us out of here!"

I was starting to pull myself up and into the backseat beside Elle when Spitfire cursed. Stopping short, I turned to look the way she was staring as she stood with one foot in the vehicle. Her gaze was focused on something beyond the garage, but with my vision the way it was, I couldn't see what she was staring at. It was extremely good at picking up details and monitoring everything within its radius, but outside of that I was completely blind unless I switched my vision into someone else.

I turned toward Elle and put a hand up on her shoulder before focusing on doing just that. Just as it was with everything else we did together, jumping into Elle's sight was easy. I just had to think about it, and then I was seeing things through her eyes as she looked anxiously through the windshield. At the same time, her emotions flooded into me almost too quickly. I felt her fear about what might be happening to Faultline, Newter, and Gregor, along with the anxiety about what she was looking at.

And what she was looking at wasn't anything good. Omertá's security reinforcements had arrived already. The driveway, the same one we needed to use to escape, was blocked by three different black vans and a red sedan, and there were an even dozen dark suited men as well as a couple in obvious cape costumes lined up to stop us from going anywhere. The smug superiority practically radiated off them.

"We don't have time for this!" Spitfire shook her head. "We need another way out. Or a distraction."

Mockshow finished buckling her seat belt with a definitive click before speaking. "Yeah, if only one of us had already thought of that. Oh wait!" With that, while the three of us stared at her, the girl thrust her hand out. Instantly, the car that she had been 'admiring' launched itself forward on a set of awkward stilt-like legs that its tires and lower half had been manipulated into. It flew out of the garage and tore into the front rank of the waiting mob forces, scattering them to create something resembling a path.

Yet there were still a lot of people in the way. Mockshow's borrowed car was doing what it could, but I was pretty sure that Spitfire wasn't the kind of driver that could get us through that minor of an opening. Unfortunately, I was also pretty sure Spitfire was the only one of us who **could** drive.

Or was she...? I let my conscience slip back out of Elle's mind, something else that was so much easier with _her_ than it ever was with anyone else. Then I was back in my panoptic view, taking a second to squeeze the other girl's hand. She looked away from the windshield to blink at me, and I gave her a thumbs up of reassurance before reaching my other hand out to grab Spitfire by the arm.

When she turned to me, eyes still wide, I pointed to the backseat, then held my hand out for the keys.

She stared at me. "What... you, you can drive?"

" **Someone** better fucking drive soon, or we're not going anywhere!" Mockshow blurted. "Hurry up!"

Rather than argue, Spitfire immediately climbed into the back, while I took the keys from her and planted myself into the driver's seat. Sticking the key in the ignition, I thought about the question. Did I know how to drive? Nope. I had never driven before in my life. Dad had made noises about getting me lessons before I turned sixteen, but that had never really come to fruition and I hadn't really cared enough to push the issue. I'd had a few other, more pressing concerns besides a driver's license.

So no, technically I couldn't drive. Which was why I really, really hoped this idea was going to work.

It had to work, I told myself while settling both hands on the wheel. This was going to work. Focusing my vision as far ahead as it would let me, I breathed out and then shoved the accelerator to the floor.

The engine roared, and... absolutely nothing else happened. We stayed firmly in place.

"Uh, dude?" Mockshow reached over, grabbing the lever next to me to shift it up. "It was in park."

Flushing with embarrassment, I hit the gas again while Spitfire started to sputter about whether I actually knew how to drive or not after all. The vehicle leapt forward that time, exiting the garage while heading straight for what remained of the mafia security forces, who quickly noticed our approach.

 _Okay, power._ I thought to myself. _You only like to work when we're in combat, huh? Life and death situations and all that? Well guess what. I'm about to shove this pedal to the floor right here and drive straight at that van ahead of us. So you have a choice. You can switch on and give me the insight I need to get us through this safely, or you can stay off and we'll just plow right into the damn thing. And no, I'm not putting my seat belt on. You turn on, or we go back into the hospital. Your move._

Then my foot hit the gas and the SUV launched itself toward the van in question. One of the security men dove out of the way, while the van itself loomed ahead, unmoving and uncaring. If I was going to chicken out of this, I had to either spin the wheel or brake right now. Instead, I floored the gas.

Just as the horrible thought that it wasn't going to work struck me, my vision abruptly zoomed out. Before, it had been wide enough to see most of the front yard and the driveway down to the gate. Now I could see all of that as well as the street beyond. I saw all of it, every detail. Not only could I see every obstacle in our way and how every part of the scenery was or could interact with every other part, but my vision also showed the pedals at my feet and gave me perfect knowledge of the exact pressure I needed to exert on them at any given time.

My mind went to work with this new wealth of knowledge, and at the last instant, I gave the wheel a slight nudge to the left while adjusting my speed just enough. The SUV _narrowly_ missed the van, clipping right past its left side so closely that our hood smacked into the mirror and sent it flying straight into the face of one of the Mafia men who crouched on top of another van with his gun raised. The flying mirror sent him pitching backwards to the ground before he could get off a shot.

Then we were past the first van, and I cranked the wheel hard the other way, punching the gas just enough that we slipped right through a tiny amount of space between the gate and the red sedan. With a squeal of protesting tires, we rocketed out of the driveway and into the street beyond. Behind us, men were shouting and racing for their own vehicles, while a few fired shots. One of the capes that I had seen, a man in a blue and silver costume, stuck his arm out Seeing the direction of his aim, I hit the brakes just as part of the road ahead of us rose up to form itself into a blockade.

Yeah, it was time to go. Finally buckling my seat belt, I pulling the wheel to avoid the raised pavement. Smiling inwardly as an idea struck me, I let the SUV hop a curb and headed straight toward the spot on the hill where the four of us had watched the mansion from earlier.

"Uhhh, V?" Spitfire questioned nervously. "You missed the road back there. The road, V. Victory? Taylor? You missed the road? You know, the thing we're supposed to be driving ooooooohhh shiiiit!"

The cry came just as the SUV reached the edge of the hill. Abruptly, we were racing down the other side, weaving in between trees as the freeway loomed far below, my vision zooming all the way out to show me where we were going. It adjusted to our speed by giving me enough vision distance to react properly, which was something else that I was going to have to remember for later.

Calculations filled my mind, numbers and angles flying past faster than I could consciously acknowledge them. Still, my body reacted to all of it, adjusting our speed and direction while the car practically flew down the tree-lined hill. Rather than slow down, I pushed us to go faster while, in the background, I could hear three simultaneous identical screams from the other passengers in this ride. Well, not really identical. Two were panicked, while the third...

"Ahhhh!" Spitfire screamed from the rear of the car, hands tightly clutching the back of my seat.

"Ahhhh!" Mockshow agreed, grasping the oh-shit handle just above the window with both hands.

"Wheee!" Elle... sat in her spot, hands raised above her head, waving like she was on a roller coaster.

The bottom of the hill was coming up. Unfortunately, the end of the hill didn't mesh with the start of the freeway. Instead, there was a thirty foot drop down to rocks. Ahead and parallel with our own direction there was a raised part of the freeway where a line of semis were steadily streaming through, while the main part of the road continued on past that point, perpendicular to our current position.

"No, Taylor," Spitfire was saying. "No. Don't even think about it. Don't—don't—doooooon't!"

I floored the accelerator once again, aiming straight for one particular part of the drop off that had a bit of a lip to it. It was pretty much a natural ramp, and I adjusted our speed to hit it just right.

The screaming resumed as we hit the makeshift ramp. Our SUV rocketed right off the hill, plummeting down through the air on a collision course with the line of semi trucks that, judging from the loud horns blaring, had just started to notice the flying car heading straight for them.

Rather than plow into the side of one of the massive trucks, we landed directly on top of one with a hard jolt that tried to knock the wind out of me. Our angle and speed put the SUV right on the roof of the trailer. The tires found purchase and we rocketed forward, driving along the trailer itself for a couple of seconds. In that brief time, I yanked the wheel so that, just as we reached the end of the trailer, rather than crashing down in front of the semi, we went off the side and straight over the edge of the raised portion of the freeway, continuing our fall toward the road further below that was running the other direction. Our tires hit the pavement with a hard jolt that drew another cry from the girl beside me, and the wheel jumped in my hands. I kept a firm grip on it, however, accelerating as hard as I could to stay ahead of the car that was coming up fast from under that overpass, horn blaring deafeningly.

"We've got company!" Spitfire had turned around in her seat to point, but my widened vision had already picked them up. Two police cars had gone screaming past in the other direction, lights flashing. As soon as they passed us, both cars made a screeching u-turn before falling in behind us, and a moment later their sirens began to blare. They were soon joined by a third.

Inwardly, I winced. Police. They were the good guys, and we were technically breaking the law. Yeah, we were trying to save our friends from what was probably a fate worse than death, but... these were the cops. I almost couldn't help the instinctive urge to pull over. It was stupid, but it was there.

But no. The authorities had done nothing while people had made my life a living hell. My father had been forced to sell our house specifically _because_ the authorities only cared about covering their own asses instead of doing the right thing. Just because someone wore a uniform didn't make them the good guys, and these cops had showed up really damn quick and fairly coordinated, all things considered.

My suspicions were confirmed a moment later as a truck pulled onto the freeway ahead of us and into my visual range. It was escorted by two more police cruisers, and I could see an obvious cape lean out the side of the truck. He lifted his arm to point back toward us, and I quickly jerked the wheel to avoid what ended up being a shot of electricity that tore into the ground behind us.

Okay then. Clearly I'd been right to be suspicious of the sudden appearance of the police. They were obviously working with Omertá's men. Or maybe this was on of the other families. Either way, the thought made me feel oddly betrayed, which was a weird emotion to have considering everything that was going on. On the other hand, it also made me angry, something remarkably effective in maintaining my power, which had never been active this long.

Before long, a couple more cop cars had joined the race down the freeway. I had no idea if these ones were in Omertá's pocket as well, but I still wasn't stopping. At that point, I probably wouldn't have stopped even if all the police were on the level and none of the mafia were around. The fact was, I owed Faultline a hell of a lot more than I owed any of them, and I **wasn't** going to let her down.

One of the cop cars came up fast and attempted... well, I wasn't sure what to call what it was they were attempting, but my power made it clear what the result would be. By tapping the rear left side of our car with their own, they were going to make it do a full one-eighty to face the other direction. If that happened, we'd lose too much speed getting turned back the right way to avoid being penned in by the rest of the cars. And there was still that guy shooting electricity to worry about.

Two could play at that game. Moving my foot to the brake, I slowed abruptly while simultaneously giving the wheel a short but firm jerk that way. The cop car shot forward just as our front end smacked into the side of it, sending the vehicle spinning out of control and onto the far side of the freeway.

I was picking up speed immediately, while Mockshow called out, "More company!"

Unable to see anything new, I made my head turn to face her to demonstrate my confusion while accelerating straight toward the truck that was ahead of us. She was pointing up. "Helicopter. News."

A news chopper. We were being filmed by the news. Uh oh.

Before I could think about that too much, the remaining cop cars began to close the distance. I realized quickly what they were trying to do, box us in so that we couldn't avoid the next shot from the electricity cape.

Rather than just let that happen, I turned the wheel, angling us onto the opposite side of the freeway.

"Uhhh, Taaaaaylor?!" Spitfire shouted from the backseat. "Wrong side of the road, wrong side of the road, wrong side of the roooooooaaaaaad!" While she repeated herself, louder with each repetition, the SUV shot straight forward through oncoming traffic. I was focused, twitching the wheel here and there, whenever my power told me that an incoming vehicle wasn't going to avoid us. It calculated not only the speed of their vehicles, but that of their reactions as well. My power allowed me to drive at top speed straight down this side of the freeway without worrying about hitting anyone because I always knew exactly where each car was going and how fast it was going to get there. The safe path was crystal clear in my head.

"Car!" Mockshow shouted unnecessarily every time any of them came anywhere remotely near us. "Car, car, car! Carcarcarcarcar!"

Amidst the screaming from a certain pair of teammates, I heard Elle speak up with a chiding tone. "You shouldn't yell at Taylor. It's distracting."

Instantly, both of them stopped the screaming, as if someone had flicked a switch. I lifted a hand from the wheel to give Elle a thumbs up, prompting a new shout to keep my hands where they were, and also to get back onto the other side of the road.

Strangely, neither of them seemed all that happier when we _were_ back in the right lane a few seconds later. Which might have had something to do with the two semis we cut off to get there, or the median we jumped over about a half-second before one of those aforementioned semis would have plowed into us. But hey, **they** were the ones that had been in such a rush to get back over to this side.

The truck was back in front of us, getting set up for another shot. But while we had been on the other side of the freeway, I'd had time to think of something, so I let him get into position. At the same time, I moved my hand down to the controls on the door and found the button that began to roll both of the windows in the back down.

"T-Taylor?" Spitfire was looking at her window as it lowered. "What are you doing?"

In answer, I put my hand out palm down and then made a gesture of lowering it. Spitfire just stared at that for a second, but Elle had already dropped to the floor when the windows started going down. She reached up, groped around until she found Spitfire's arm, and yanked her down as well.

An instant later, the cape in the truck leaned out and shot another of his electricity bolts back at us. At that exact moment, I spun the wheel and adjusted our speed to send the SUV into a tight three hundred and sixty degree spin. Just as the bolt of energy reached us, it passed straight through both open windows and continued through to the nearest cop car, killing its engine and lights immediately.

Then we were back on course, continuing on west along the freeway. I had a general idea of the route Faultline had been planning to take, and I was hoping that it wouldn't be too much longer before...

There. I saw the overturned van a second before Mockshow pointed and called out. It was the vehicle that the others had been using until it had been hit by the EMP.

There was no sign of them, and we hadn't passed them on the way here. Obviously Faultline wouldn't take them back the way they'd come, which meant they'd probably hopped the wall and were hoofing it across the sagebrush and rock covered field. We had to catch up with them, but first I wanted to get rid of Mr. Electricity.

To that end, I reached a hand around into the back and tapped Spitfire. When she looked up, I turned in my seat (it wasn't like I needed to face the direction we were going anyway) and cupped my free hand in front of the mouth part of my mask, making the best gesture for flame that I could. Then I pointed out the window before gesturing to the truck that we were closing in on.

"You got it," she managed, scooting herself over near the door. "Just put a hand up when it's time."

I waited, dodging around two more of the man's bolts before we got close enough. I could see the frustration in his body language, and could tell he was taking his time to make this next bolt count. We were so close, he couldn't possibly miss.

At the last second, I accelerated hard and brought us right up alongside them, within (literal) spitting distance. Then I raised my hand, tightening it into a fist.

Spitfire immediately leaned out the window and used her own power. A torrent of flame shot out through the opening in her gas mask, burning through the truck's tire and sending it skidding wildly.

As soon as that was done, I angled off the freeway, taking a short but bumpy jump off the edge to land in the field. Then we were racing through the sagebrush while the helicopter kept pace overhead. The cop cars were trying to get oriented to follow, but we had a solid lead at that point.

 _Please don't be too late_ , I thought to myself. _Please, please don't be too late._

We weren't. Before long, we spotted four figures, one of them the distinct shape of Gregor. They were facing what my vision eventually expanded to reveal as a half dozen black suited thugs along with three obvious capes. One of them, the clear leader, was dressed up like an actual wild west gangster with a cowboy hat and a long leather duster. His face was covered by a black featureless mask that looked like hard plastic and was completely smooth across the front.

All of the people present looked up just as I brought the SUV to a screeching halt right in between the two groups. Dust was flying everywhere, and I heard orders being shouted.

As soon as the SUV was stopped, Spitfire and Mockshow spilled out. I figured their eagerness was about half concern for the others and half a desperation to get out of the vehicle before I found an excuse to start driving again.

Elle, on the other hand, turned and said a single word to me, head cocked quizzically. It took me a second to realize what she was asking, but when she explained it in another couple of words, I nodded.

We both hopped out, joining Spitfire and Mockshow in putting ourselves in front of Faultline, Gregor, Newter, and the girl that had to be Shamrock. The three of them looked exhausted, and had obviously been fighting for their lives out here.

"An impressive entrance," the man with the duster observed. "And I see you weren't lying about those reinforcements you mentioned."

"I know my people, Frontier." Faultline informed him flatly.

Frontier. I knew the name. He and his team were another mercenary team, rivals to Faultline I supposed. They called themselves White Company, after some ancient group from the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

The man continued to stand there, clearly sizing us up. "Indeed. According to Voltricks, your people here are pretty dangerous. Ran his ride off the road." He paused a moment then before gesturing. "I suppose we call this a draw then. But remember, Miss Faultline, the trick about things staying in Vegas is that the people out here don't forget them. And our group, we won't forget you either, or what you did today. Might come a time when someone offers enough cash for me to decide it might be worth finding out which of our teams is better in a straight fight." He rocked back on his heels, the threat sliding as easily from him as a casual observation of the weather would have from anyone else. "Oh and uh, does your driver there have a name? As I said, Voltricks was very impressed. And he's not an easy man to excite."

Before Faultline could speak up, Elle interrupted, saying the same word she had said a few moments earlier before we had gotten out. "Ariadne."

Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, who had been made lady of the labyrinth. She had been the one who knew the labyrinth, who cared for it and who had helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur. I knew the story well enough that Elle had only had to say a few words to remind me of who she was. After that, I knew what that sort of name would mean to her. Ariadne had been linked to the labyrinth. Elle had been offering to tie her name to mine. I couldn't just say no to something like that.

Ariadne had also sworn revenge on the man, the one she had cared for so much, after he betrayed and abandoned her. He left her alone, and she became a goddess who married Dionysus. So yeah, maybe it fit me in other ways too.

Faultline looked at Labyrinth, then to me before turning back to Frontier. "You heard her. Ariadne. And she's one of mine."

"Consider that noted," the man took a step back, then gave a sharp whistle. "We're done for now, but this isn't over. Not by," his hand tapped the pistol that was in its holster at his hip, "a long shot." Turning on his heel, the man began to walk away. His men followed suit.

And just like that, the fight was over. I felt black spots dance in front of my vision while the sound of the hovering helicopter grew louder. No, no, not right now. I couldn't pass out now. Not in front of the news chopper with everyone watching.

Still, I felt my body start to collapse. I'd pushed it too hard. My power had never been going for this long, and it was shutting me down to compensate.

I pitched forward... and landed in a snow bank.

Sputtering, I rolled over and picked myself up, staring at the snow covered field until my eyes found a mischievously smiling Elle. She rocked back on her heels while announcing, "In with me, not out there. Poof."

She had yanked me into her world before my body could faint. And more importantly, before anyone could _see_ me faint. As far as anyone out there knew, I had simply teleported or something.

Looking around, my eyes found a spot in the sky where we could see through the physical Elle's eyes as Faultline worked to usher everyone into the waiting vehicle to get the hell out of there. Her eyes found Labyrinth's, and she spoke to both of us. "You did well. Take a break, we can talk later."

"Well, I suppose that means going through a debriefing and meeting Shamrock can wait..." I said slowly while turning to look toward the other girl. "It's going to take my body some time to recover anyway. Sooo we have time to kill. And you know what?"

"What, Taylor?" Elle asked, head tilted curiously.

In answer, I slowly lifted my gloved hand to show her the tightly packed ball of snow that I'd formed in it while picking myself out of the drift that I'd fallen into.

Elle's eyes widened, and she let out a squeal before diving out of the way just as I chucked the ball at her. It missed by a mile, going high and wide.

But that was okay. There was plenty more snow where that came from. Yeah, we'd need to talk to Faultline as soon as my body was rested enough, and once they had safely escaped the eye of the chopper. But that would take awhile, and I had done my part. We'd actually done it. We'd rescued the others, even if we'd had to piss off half the Las Vegas police department, and potentially threw gasoline on a rivalry with a rival merc group to do it. They were safe, and we had Shamrock, even if I hadn't officially met her yet.

Eventually, the full magnitude of everything that had just happened and what we had done would hit me. I'd have to lay down and replay every part of that chase over and over again until I could convince myself that I hadn't made it up in my head, that it had really happened. At some point, I'd get around to that. It would sink in far enough that I'd have to actually believe that it was real.

But for right now? Well, for now I felt like having a snowball fight with my friend.

So I did.

 **6-08 – Emma**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th**_

"No offense, Tats, but are you really sure you know where you're going? Cuz you seem pretty lost."

Ahead of me, Tattletale stopped in the middle of the alley she had been leading us down and looked back, squinting over my shoulder toward Alec, who had been talking. "First of all, we're not in costume, so it's Lisa. Second, even when we are in costume, it's Tattletale, not 'Tats.' And third, I'm not lost. We're going in a round about way so I can make sure no one's following us to our new base."

Shortly after I had delivered the news about Brian to the others (including Tyler who had shown up by that point), Lisa had received a call from this mysterious and secretive 'boss.' She'd gone out to meet with him, leaving me to sit in the motel room with the others while we waited to hear about what was going on. An hour or two later, she had returned with news that the boss had set us up with a new base.

Now we'd simply been following her around for twenty minutes as she led us through the streets, up and down a couple different alleys, and through at least three parking lots. I was sure we'd passed the same areas a couple times, so I couldn't blame Alec for deciding that the other girl had gotten lost.

Actually, the only ones who didn't seem to mind the long walk were Bitch and her dogs. They'd gotten so cooped up inside that motel room that I was pretty sure Rachel had been close to snapping and taking off even if Lisa hadn't come back with news about the new base.

She might still do just that, come to think of it. Rachel hadn't taken the news that Brian was serious about switching sides very well. There'd been a lot of cursing and threats until she'd finally stormed out of the room and into the one she had been staying in, slamming the door after herself. The howls of the dogs had gotten so bad that the manager of the motel had called up to the room threatening to kick us out if we didn't 'shut up those stupid mutts.' That was a message that we chose not to pass along, since I had been pretty sure that the last thing we wanted to do was give Bitch a target for her anger.

Actually, I was surprised that the others had gotten the dogs back so easily to begin with. Apparently since the dogs were completely normal without Bitch's power, they had simply been given to the local animal shelter. Bitch, Nimue, and Tattletale had broken into the place to get them back on the very same night that we'd done our big rescue mission. And not only had she rescued her own dogs (the Rottweiler Brutus, German Shepherd Judas, and a Terrier named Angelica), but Bitch had come out with two more that she had flatly refused to leave behind. One was a Dalmatian puppy she had named Phoebe, while the other was a Bulldog whose name was apparently Bentley.

All five dogs were attached to leashes that Rachel was expertly handling. Her trained dogs were keeping the two new members of the pack in line, growling whenever the puppy or the bulldog tried to pull too much at the lead. Mostly, however, all of them just seemed happy to be out of that room.

"You do realize that _we_ need to be able to find the place without you around at some point?" Alec pointed out to Tattletale, interrupting my thoughts about Rachel and her dogs. "Besides, like you said, we're not in costume. If anyone's following us now, wouldn't we be in even worse shit?"

Beside me, Tyler drawled, "If you're nervous because you feel like you're being watched, babe, don't worry, that's just my eyes you're feeling. They haven't left your backside since you started walking."

"Yeah, I know." Lisa squinted at the Asian girl pointedly. "It's a little distracting." When Tyler just shrugged without a hint of remorse, she shook her head and focused on Alec. "Look." Raising her hand, she pointed past him and toward one of the tallest buildings in the area. "The Given building. If you get lost, find the front of that place and go down the street that leads away from it, Highland. Take that south until you reach the gas station, then head east on Columbia and you'll pass this alley right there." She pointed to the street just past the alley that we were in. "Then come all the way down here."

Lisa started walking again, so the rest of us followed. She led the way further down the alley, out of sight of the street. The walls of the buildings on either side of us towered high overhead, blocking out most of the sunlight to cast everything around us in this dingy alley into deep shadows.

Finally stopping, Lisa turned to an unmarked metal door without any visible handle on it. It was one of those doors that was only supposed to be opened from the other side. "And here we are."

For a moment, the four of us (and all five dogs) stood there staring at the blonde girl. Then Tyler leaned closer to me while stage-whispering. "I've got fifty bucks that says this is the part where we find out that Lisa's cutting her losses and selling us to the organ harvesters that live in this creepy place."

Rolling her eyes, Lisa protested, "It's not that bad on the inside, guys. It's supposed to look rundown from the outside. That's the point of hiding. Just trust me. Look," Using two fingers, she pointed to a crack in the wall next to the door, a small hole between a couple of bricks. "Emma, put a finger there."

I blinked once before retorting, "I'm sorry, absolutely don't stick my fingers anywhere near _what_ hole?"

"Oh come on, guys," Lisa pouted a little bit. "It's cool. It's really cool, just... do it, okay? Please?"

Exchanging glances with the others, I finally sighed and stepped that way. "Okay, okay." Anticipating the worst, I put my hand up and gingerly pressed a finger into the hole. Instead of finding a pissed off spider or anything slimy, my finger brushed up against a small round button, like a doorbell. I blinked again and looked toward Lisa, who smiled knowingly while nodding for me to go ahead. So I pushed it.

As soon as I did, the metal door groaned and then there was a hiss of releasing air as it popped open.

"See?" Lisa was openly grinning by that point, raising both hands demonstratively toward us before gesturing to the open door. "I told you. Come on, you guys have to admit it, that's pretty damn cool."

Blowing out a breath, I finally couldn't help the smile that came. "Okay, yeah. That is pretty good."

Most of the others agreed, and Lisa seemed a lot more at ease. She gestured for us to head through the door. "Head on in. Like I said before, it looks a lot better on the inside than it does from out here."

Obligingly, we went through the doorway and into what turned out to be a large, semi-circular room, with one door straight ahead, two a bit to the left equal distances apart, and another one to the right.

Lisa moved past us and to the middle of the semi-circle before pivoting on her heel to address us eagerly. "We can put anything we want in here, but I was thinking we'd stick some kind of security measures just in case someone gets this far. Maybe Tyler could whip something up to deter people."

"Sure," the Korean girl replied easily. "And if you want, it could even involve actual whips." Before Tattletale could respond, she amended, "Actually, even if you don't want. I've got a great idea now."

"Oookay then," Lisa shook her head. "On that note, I think we'll just move on."

Raising his hand, Alec objected, "Actually, I could stand to hear a little more about the whips, please."

Ignoring that, Lisa walked to the single door on the right side of the room. We followed, and she led us through the door to a smaller room with a freight elevator that we all stood on while she hit the button to activate it. With a rumbling noise that made a couple of the dogs whine, the elevator descended.

Before long, the freight elevator stopped, and Lisa hauled up the gate to reveal a large, open room. From the look of it, the room was as wide and long as the entire building. The floor around the elevator was simple cement, as were all of the walls. There was a pathway of cement along the right-hand side that led to what looked like a bedroom about halfway down. But through most of the room, the floor was... nonexistent. Instead, there was dirt and grass. In the middle of this grassy field was a water fountain, and I saw a couple small trees scattered around the place. It was a small, indoor park.

"This is your space, Rachel," Lisa announced while raising a hand to indicate the whole area. "It's all yours. The grass is for your dogs, and there should be enough space down here that they won't feel _too_ cooped up all the time. And when you do want to go out," she pointed at the opposite end of the large room where a heavy metal gate could be seen. "That's the way." From her pocket, Lisa withdrew a silver key on a chain and offered it to the other girl. "This key unlocks that gate, which leads to a tunnel that takes you out into the drainage ditch beside the actual park about two blocks away. You need the key for that gate and for the one at the other end. Both the gates and the tunnels should be large enough to take your dogs through even at full size, so you don't have to worry about that."

Rachel was squinting hard at Lisa, like she wasn't sure how to react to any of this. Slowly, she lifted her hand and snatched the key away before squinting at it. Her dogs were waiting patiently (mostly) at her heels, their leashes held loosely in her other hand while Brutus, Judas, and Angelica did most of the work keeping Bentley and Phoebe under control and calm in the face of all the grass.

Finally, Rachel bent down, unhooking the leashes from the dogs one at a time before giving a short whistle. Instantly, the dogs leapt away, running across the small field to inspect their new home.

"Guess we can stay for awhile," the girl grunted the words before suspicion returned to her gaze as she looked back at Tattletale. "What do we have to give him for doing all this?"

"Nothing," Lisa replied. Then she corrected herself. "Or rather, we already did it. That job we pulled with the armored car? The three thousand dollars for each of us was only part of the payment. This place was the rest of it. The boss has had people working overtime to fix it up. The whole building's ours, all five stories, plus this basement. I was keeping that a surprise until we got here."

"Wait," Alec spoke up. "So we could've had more money instead? You know I've gotta replace everything we left behind since Judas flipped for the silver, right?"

"You need money that bad," Tyler informed him, "just take a modeling gig. You've got that pretty boy look going, you could make some decent dough. No risk, quick return."

I nodded, remembering the modeling jobs that I'd done. "Yeah, they're always looking for new faces for the local paper with ad inserts and stuff."

"Oh you both know I'd be the new hotness," Alec replied to us. "But it's kind of hard to avoid attracting your father's attention if your face is plastered all over the place."

Blinking, I asked, "Does your dad pay a lot of attention to the amateur modeling scene?"

Alec coughed. "You'd be surprised."

Lisa just strolled past him, back toward the elevator. "Let me show you the rest of the place before you decide you got ripped off, okay? The boss didn't just focus on Bitch when he had it fixed up."

We followed after her, except for Rachel, who stayed behind with her dogs. Obviously, she didn't really care about the rest of the building or anything in it as long as she had her own space. I paused at the elevator and looked back to find the other girl staring after me. When she noticed me looking back at her, she gave me an unreadable look before turning away once more call for her dogs.

As previously mentioned, Rachel had calmed down toward Tyler and me a fair bit in the last few days. She still never really smiled, and she had a hair trigger temper, but she'd stopped insisting that if Nimue or I stayed, she'd quit. The fact that both of us had worked to save her from PRT custody had obviously helped a fair bit, raising us from targets for her hatred, into people that she just tended to ignore.

Then the elevator was rising, and I shook away thoughts of Bitch while we returned to the initial semi-circular room. This time, Lisa led the way to the left-most door, the one closest to the entrance. "Through here," she announced while opening it to demonstrate. "We have a storage room."

We glanced inside, finding a room lined with shelves and boxes full of random crap. Lisa explained, "The boss left a bunch of stuff for us that he thought might be useful. Especially for you, Tyler. You can go through it and see what you still need and he'll try to get it. You know, within reason."

From there, she took us to the second left-hand door, which ended up leading into an impressive looking kitchen with an attached dining room. "If anybody wants to cook around here," Lisa spoke while walking in to gesture around the room. "Or just heat something up, this place has got two stoves, four microwaves, three sinks, a dishwasher, and a couple fridges. And the cupboards are already full."

"What if we wanna have a pizza delivered instead?" Alec questioned while lazily brushing a finger along the nearby counter. He opened one of the refrigerators before taking out a can of cola. "Do we just tell the nice delivery guy to wait out by the unmarked door until we pop it open for him?"

Smirking, Lisa shook her head. "No, that's when you go out, pick it up at the restaurant and bring it back."

"No delivery?" Alec gave a long, put-upon sigh. "See, I knew this place couldn't be perfect."

Rolling her eyes at that, Lisa led us back out of the room and to the final door, the one at the opposite side of the room from the main entrance. We followed her through that door and into a hallway with an elevator, a set of stairs, and a couple more doors.

Starting off by pointing at the elevator, Lisa explained, "Second floor is wide open, like Bitch's basement. Except it's a training area. There's weights, mirrors, pads, all things to practice on. Third floor is more storage space, a nice lab for Tyler to work in, and the meeting room for us to plan missions. The fourth and fifth floors are furnished apartments for each of us. There's four apartments per floor, all equal size, so you guys can choose whichever ones you want. The extra ones are in case we add anyone else to the team in the future, or if we have guests or whatever. Each apartment has a small kitchenette in it if you don't feel like going down to the main one and socializing or whatever."

"What are those doors?" I asked, pointing to the two that remained.

"That one," Lisa replied while pointing, "goes to the front lobby half of this floor. It's mostly empty space and an old lobby where the main entrance is. You can check it out, but there isn't anything there, and the doors out there are all boarded up to make the place look empty. And the other one..." Stepping over to the door in question, she tugged it open and gestured within.

We looked, and Tyler whistled. I couldn't blame her. Through the door was some kind of game room. I saw a pool table, a foosball table, a couple of couches, and a wide screen television with a couple of game systems sitting in front of it.

"Okay," Alec decided. "I guess this place is a good enough payment for that job."

Lisa smiled. "I figured you'd say that. Like I said, the apartments are furnished too. The boss rewards good work. Now we can go up and you guys can pick out-"

Before she could finish speaking, my phone went off with my father's ringtone. Wincing, I took a second to decline the call. "Sorry, he's-" I'd barely gotten the two words out before the ringing started again. "-being persistent, apparently." Again, I declined the call.

This time, I didn't even have time to say anything at all before Dad tried to call me for the third time. Sighing in exasperation, I held my hand up to the others before accepting the call. "God, Dad, what?"

"Oh thank God," Dad's voice was full of relief. "Emma, you're okay? Where are you?"

Frowning, I decided that the worry in his voice was bad enough that I wouldn't snap at him again. At least not until I knew what the problem was. "I'm at a friend's place. I'll be home soon, I just-"

"No." Dad's voice was loud. "You stay where you are. Don't go anywhere."  
"What?" I blinked at the others before asking, "Why?"

"Aren't you watching what's going on? Emma, there's a war going on out there tonight."

"A war?" I echoed, lost.

Dad sighed. "And they call yours the connected generation. Yes, a war. The Brigade is going to war against the Empire and the ABB since..." He hesitated before pressing on. "Since two of the Brigade were killed tonight."

My eyes widened in shock. "Two of the Brigade were killed?" That snapped everyone's head around to stare at me.

"Laserdream and the new one, Archive," Dad confirmed. "Kaiser killed them, blew them up with some kind of grenade. Then Lady Photon blew **him** apart. Now they're fighting all over the city. It's insane. And..."

"And?" I prompted, still trying to cope with the shock of hearing that two of the city's heroes and one of the major villains had been killed already.

I could hear the fear in my father's voice as he continued. "And the Merchants, they... they've been grabbing people, Emma."

"Grabbing people?" I frowned uncertainly.

"Off the streets," he explained. "They've been using this war as a distraction to grab people off the streets, girls mostly. They even released a statement saying that they were going to take a hundred people and wouldn't let them go until the PRT releases Squealer."

That was why Dad had been so frantic. He'd been afraid that the Merchants had taken me, that it was that day with the ABB all over again.

"So you stay where you are until this is over." Dad's voice was firm."If you have to spend the night, that's fine. Just, just don't go out until it's done. Are you safe where you are? Do you need me to talk to your friend's parents? What friend is this?"

"No, you don't need to talk to anyone. And it's Lisa," I replied after glancing to the other girl. "I'm staying at Lisa's. You don't know her. I'll stay here for the night, Dad. I'm not going anywhere."

"Good." Breathing out, Dad sounded even more relieved. "Good, just... just be careful. Seems like the only gang not causing some kind problem tonight is the Undersiders. Which probably means they're about to do something huge."

I looked up at Alec, who was busy puffing one of his cheeks out, poking it with a finger, and then puffing out the other cheek as if the air had been pushed that far.

"Yup," I replied. "They're nefarious criminal masterminds all right. Listen, Dad, I need to go now. Lisa wants to know what's going on."

"Look, Emma." Dad's voice had gone back to being concerned. "You call me in the morning before you try to go anywhere, okay?"

I agreed, and then disconnected before explaining what he had told me to the others. When I was finished, Alec cursed. "Holy shit. What's gotten into the Empire?"

"This doesn't make sense," Lisa complained. "Why would Kaiser escalate that far? Blew them up? What the hell for? It doesn't get him anything. Unless..." She trailed off, looking pensive.

Tyler was watching her curiously. "You got something, my vivacious vulpes-ish vixen?"

"I'm not sure," Lisa admitted. "Sometimes it's hard to tell when it's my power and when I'm just inventing things. But... I need to think about it some more." She walked back into the hall and hit the button for the elevator. "For now, it sounds like we're staying here for the night, so let's do that choosing our rooms thing."

I stepped onto the elevator with the others, but I hadn't put my phone away yet. Instead, I stared at it for a few seconds before bringing up my text message history with Madison. Quickly, before I lost my nerve, I typed out a message and sent it to her.

 _I know we aren't talking, but I need 2 know that ur ok. Plz txt me when you get this. I'm sorry._

Putting the phone away then, I sighed. It was probably nothing. Madison would respond eventually and I'd feel dumb for worrying. It was just that with the Merchants out there snatching girls off the street, I had to make sure.

But really, what kind of trouble could Madison possibly get herself into?

 **6-09 – Sophia**

 _ **Sunday, April 17th, 2011**_

"Oh god, oh god, please. I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me. My arm, it can't bend any fur—aarrghh!"

For once, I wasn't the source of this particular lowlife thug's hysterical whining. Actually, I wasn't anywhere near him. Instead, Imp and I were both crouched beside the gate that led into a small parking lot beside a home improvement store. Across the lot and near the back entrance of that store, the source of the whining was on his knees with his arm held so far behind his back that I was kind of surprised that it hadn't been torn completely out of its socket yet. Not that the person holding it there while standing over the piece of shit punk wasn't doing their best to make that actually happen.

Seraph, apparently back on the streets after the Protectorate had been forced by Brandish to release her, twisted the man's arm far enough that his howls reached even higher decibels. She snarled so angrily that I was actually kind of impressed. "Where are the rest of the Empire goons, you stupid piece of shit?! Where are they, huh? Tell me or I swear to god I'll rip your **fucking** arm out and shove it up-"

"I'm not Empire!" The man screamed the protest in between howling about his arm. "I fucking swear, I'm with the Merchants, not the Empire! I wouldn't join those racist piece of sh—aaahhh fuuuuck!"

Seraph straightened and gave the man a yank and a shove that knocked him down onto his backside, cradling his newly dislocated arm. Her voice had dropped into a vicious, hard and somewhat unhinged tone. "You think I care **which** fucking gang you're a part of? You're all the same. All of you fucking monsters. You think you can kill anyone you want and just get away with it?! You think you can kill my—my..." With a scream of incoherent rage, the girl held her hand out, creating some kind of energy sword before swinging it around and down toward the prone man. I had no idea what part of him she planned on hitting with that thing, but it was pretty obvious that she wasn't holding back.

I was right there before I even consciously realized that I was intervening. My hand caught the girl's descending arm, and I gave a quick tug that yanked her blow off course, the strength of her swing spinning her around partway before she could recover. "Wait," I started to say while releasing her.

Before I could say anything else, a glowing red bar appeared between us before slamming into my stomach. I doubled over, and a second later something else struck my legs, dumping me to the ground.

Then both of the bars that Seraph had created entangled themselves with me, pinning my arms to my sides and my legs together as I lay there on the ground. I was trapped, or I would be as long as I didn't just use my real power to escape. But that would mean exposing the fact that I _had_ a power.

"Hey!" Aisha's voice called out just before one of her imps, a cement one, smacked into Seraph from the side, knocking her stumbling away from me. "Do it look like we're the fucking bad guys?" She asked while the imp did a cartwheel to put itself back at her feet where it stuck thumbs in its ears, waggled its fingers, and stuck its tongue out at the enraged Brigade cape.

"... yes," Seraph replied flatly after looking the other girl up and down. "Yes, it really does."

She wasn't really wrong either. The costume that Aisha and Bryce had worked up was pretty nice, considering how little time had been spent on it. But it also didn't exactly scream the kind of PR-friendly 'hero' look that the Protectorate twerps were always going on about. Not that my Shadow Stalker costume was much better in that regard, but this made that one look positively cheerful.

First, Aisha was wearing a black bodysuit that she and Bryce had found somewhere. While the boy had been working on the rest of her equipment today, Aisha had used white fabric paint and a stencil to put the outline of a demon's skull on the chest. Her boots and gloves were similar to mine with the ability to cling to walls, though instead of an electrical blast, hers included short, inch long claws that could pop out of the fingers. She also wore a dark green cloak with a hood on it that went with the white demon head mask that covered her face. Bryce hadn't had time to add any toys to the mask yet.

The point was, she didn't exactly look like she was on the side of gumdrops and lollipops. And from the look of things, Seraph wasn't in the mood to talk this out. She was already stalking forward.

Fuck. This was what I got for trying to stop that piece of shit from getting what he deserved. Hell, why **had** I stepped in and stopped her anyway? I hadn't really thought about what I was doing. I'd just... acted. Stupid. Really fucking stupid. Why should I care if some gang fuck got his just desserts?

Bryce was yelping at me through the com, telling me to do something. Before I could decide that exposing my power would be better than leaving Imp in trouble, Aisha held her hand out and tugged one of her gloves off to expose her dark skin. "See?" She wiggled her fingers. "Not with the Empire."

The sight slowed Seraph briefly before she shook her head. "Like I told that jackass, I don't care what gang you're with. You're all the fucking same, and you deserve to be put in the-"

"Seraph, stop." The new voice spoke up from the parking lot entrance, and I turned my head slightly to see Dauntless standing there in his white and gold costume, complete with Greek-style helmet. He was holding his spear in one hand, while energy crackled around his boots. "These guys aren't your enemies." Nodding toward me, the man added, "That one fits the description of a new hero that we-"

"Whatever," Seraph dismissively released the bars that had been holding me against the pavement. "So they're not bad guys. They should still stay the hell out of my way. And so should you."

"We've been through this already once tonight, Seraph," Dauntless stood there, spear held low. "Brandish took you out of our custody before, but if you keep pushing things, we're going to have to..." He trailed off before sighing. "Look, just... go home, okay? You shouldn't be out right now. Please, go be with your team. That's where you should be. Not out here on the streets, not right after your-"

Before he could continue, Seraph shot straight up into the sky. She was gone a moment later, flying off into the darkness rather than stand there and listen to the man's words for one second longer.

Sighing again as he gazed at the spot where she had been, Dauntless touched something on the side of his helmet before speaking. "This is Dauntless. Seraph is back on the streets again." Then he turned toward us as I finished picking myself off the ground. "I take it you're Hinder and... you I don't know."

"Imp," Aisha declared, sticking her arm in front of herself so that the cement imp at her feet could leap up and hang from it like a monkey dangling from a tree. "The newest and coolest part of Normandy." Before the man could voice his obvious question, she added, "Our team. Normandy."

"Ah." Dauntless looked to me. "Are you all right? We don't have much of a classification for you yet."

I froze briefly. Shit. Dauntless knew me. Not well, of course, but he'd talked to me both as Sophia and as Shadow Stalker enough that he might just recognize my voice. It wasn't highly likely, but it was still _possible,_ and that was more risk than I wanted to take before I could find a relatively decent excuse to talk Bryce into adding some kind of voice changer to my mask.

But if I didn't say anything at all, it would be even more suspicious. Fuck me sideways. Why did we have to run into one of the Protectorate right now? And why was he interested in chatting? This wasn't supposed to be a social club! We were supposed to be pounding heads, not yammering on.

Finally deciding that sounding faintly familiar was less dangerous than refusing to talk, I deepened my voice into a more gravelly tone before speaking, "Fine. Just need to get moving."

Both Imp and Dauntless stared at me for a second while Bryce spoke in my ear, "... the fuck was that?"

I ignored him, focusing on Dauntless. The man was shaking his head. "Right, one of those. Uh, look, you kids really shouldn't be out here tonight. Seriously, there's bad stuff going on that you don't want any part of. We already lost two heroes tonight, and if you two are actually trying to do some good, we might... It's just... not a good time for you to be patrolling. We made the Wards sit it out, and you-"

"Aren't Wards," I blurted, barely remembering to lower my voice while I felt that anger rise up in me again, the frustration every time someone tried to stop me from doing the things that I knew needed to be done. "We aren't Wards, so you can't tell us what to do."

Beside me, Aisha spat the words, "Yeah, I'm sure your little goosestepping tin soldier wannabes toe the line for you, but we aren't part of it. So see you later." Pivoting on her heel, she stalked away.

I turned to follow the other girl out of the lot. Behind us, I heard Dauntless mutter to the Merchant thug, "I thought _Armsmaster_ was supposed to be the one who didn't know how to talk to kids."

* * *

From there, Imp and I continued to make our way through the city while the other girl used a half dozen of those creatures of hers to scout the way. She could only make one of each kind of material, so there was the cement imp as well as others made of wood, rock, plastic, brick, and cloth.

Dauntless had been right about one thing at least. The city was completely _insane._ It seemed like everywhere we went, Brigade members were either fighting with gang thugs or leaving a pile of injured bodies in their wake. They had lost control and were attacking every criminal they could find.

Yet none of the 'victims' of the Brigade's righteous rampage were actually part of the Empire, as far as I could tell. It was like every member of the Empire, from the lowest grunt on up to Hookwolf himself, had vanished entirely. Mostly the Brigade had finished wiping out all of the ABB's non-cape forces, and a good chunk of the rank and file Merchants. Not that the Merchants themselves had been idle...

"That's right, people, form an orderly line and get on the bus!" Below the roof that Aisha and I were crouched on top of, a dozen handcuffed civilians were hustled along at gunpoint along the street and into a waiting bus by a handful of thugs carrying automatic rifles.

The guy shouting was one of the Merchant capes, a figure in a positively gaudy gold tuxedo with a silk shirt and tie. His simple face mask was covered in gemstones, and he held a bright shiny silver revolver in one hand that he was using to gesture toward open door of the waiting bus. "Let's go, let's go, faster."

"Benjamins," I scowled while speaking the man's cape name.

"Seriously?" Imp snorted beside me. "His name's just Benjamin? Whatever, let's kick his ass."

"No, that's not—wait!" I blurted. It was too late though, Imp had already swung herself over the side of the roof and was using the wall clinging abilities of hr gloves and boots to slide down the wall of the building. Near the bottom, she leapt off and was joined by all six of her imps as they raced that way.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I followed her. " Bryce, tell her to stop right now. Stop, just wait for-"

Aisha was already there. "Hey, dumbass!" She shouted at the man in the golden suit, waving a hand. "Let me guess, you're recruiting all these dweebs for a ghetto version of The Bachelor."

"Bryce," I spoke while dropping off of the wall. "Flood our earphones with music, as loud as you can."

"But-" The boy started to protest.

"Just do it!" I ordered, lunging that way. I had to get to Aisha, had to cover her ears before-

Not fast enough. Benjamins held his hand up, showing Imp a silver dollar that was held there. "You want this?" As he spoke, the coin gave off a brief, bright golden glow for a moment, and Aisha's gaze, as well as all of her imps, became riveted to it. "You can have it," Benjamins continued while flipping the coin over in his hand. "If you beat the shit out of her." He pointed past Imp, toward me.

I didn't hear what he said next, because Bryce **finally** filled our earphones with deafening music the way I'd told him to. It was, again, too late. Aisha was already turning my way, and that small army of imps of hers were bounding toward me. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was the power that I had been trying to warn her about, if she would have just waited for half a second. Benjamins was classified as a Master-Stranger. Basically, his power allowed him to designate any item he could touch as an idol that his chosen target (only one person could be affected by a single idol) would do _**anything**_ to get.

The wooden imp reached me first, and I ducked under its leap before lunging sideways to avoid the rock one. For small things, I already knew how strong they were. I had to get to Aisha herself and snap her out of this somehow, before things got any worse than they already were.

Speaking of worse, that bus full of people was pulling away. I caught a glimpse of a couple of the civilians looking out the back window at me, their faces triggering something in my memory that I couldn't place for the moment, distracted as I was.

And to make matters even more shitty, I really hated the song that Bryce had chosen.

One of the imps hit me in the side of the leg, knocking me to the ground with a cry. Before the next one could hit me, I caught it with on hand and threw the damn thing as hard as I could at one of the others. Then I flipped back to my feet and caught Aisha's wild swing easily. Damn this girl needed to learn how to fight. Not that I minded her being so shit at it at the moment, but for future cases.

I'd teach her how to fight right after I taught her how to _fucking sit still long enough to hear what the enemy's goddamn powers were._

Avoiding two more wild swings while using the girl herself to block her imps from getting to me, I thought rapidly. Something to snap her out of this shit, something to snap her out of it.

Finally, I dialed the power level of my gloves down to about half strength. The next time Imp tried to punch me, I grabbed her arm with both of my hands and then triggered the electrical burst. Aisha gave a sharp squeal before dropping to the ground, twitching a few times.

I smacked my earbud to turn it off just in time to hear Aisha mutter blearily, "What the hell just happened?"

Great, she was okay again. The shock to her system had snapped her out of it. Unfortunately, when I looked up, there was no sign of the bus. It was long gone, with Benjamins and the hostages on board.

And I had just remembered why the people that had been looking out that back window had seemed familiar to me. I didn't know them super well, but I had met them a couple of times.

After all, it would have been pretty hard to be friends with Madison for over a year _without_ meeting her parents.

 **Interlude 6A – Fleur**

 _ **Monday, April 18th, 2011**_

"Yes, sir. I will... thank you." Even to her own ears, Rebecca Johansen's voice sounded hollow and empty. She carried through the motions of disconnecting her phone, then simply stood there in the kitchen of the Pelham house, staring at the front of the nearby stove without actually seeing it. She had changed clothes at some point, though she couldn't even remember doing so.

From the doorway, Donny spoke up. "The school?" Unlike her, he still wore his costume, sans visor.

In her day job, Rebecca taught English Literature at the local college. There was no way she could have gotten through single class just then, let alone the entire day. So she'd called in for a personal sick day and had her classes excused. Tomorrow... well, she'd worry about tomorrow later. Right now she was just trying to survive _today_ and get her family through it. Or what was left of her family anyway.

She nodded without looking up. "Canceled my classes for the day. They, umm, they'll take care of it."

Again, that emptiness to her voice. Her words sounded meaningless, and her actions felt like those of a puppet. Why was she standing here? What was she _supposed_ to do? What was the right answer?

Donny heaved a long, tired sigh while moving to stand across from her. His eyes were bloodshot, she noticed upon glancing up. Like her, he hadn't slept all night. First they had been fighting in the city until they were literally too tired to fight any more without falling over, and then they had stayed up the rest of the intervening time trying to be there for everyone else, particularly Sarah, Neil, and Eric.

"They asleep yet?" Rebecca asked softly, not wanting to let her voice carry too far in this quiet house.

"Sarah is," Donny replied, his voice catching slightly. "Neil is umm, he's uhh, in the shower again. Eric's in the living room." He nodded over his shoulder a bit listlessly. "He's... I mean he's..." There was a pause before Donny cursed harshly. "I don't know. Fuck, I don't know what he's doing. Damn it, fuck." Hissing the words with obvious frustration, he pivoted on one heel and started to stride that way.

Belatedly, Rebecca caught his arm. "Donny, stop. I'll check on Eric and the others. You... sit." Taking her husband by the shoulders, she pulled him to a chair, guiding him down into it. "You umm, you need to eat something." With one hand, she tugged the half-eaten bowl of peaches that she had started while using her other hand to gently stroke the back of his hair. "Please, Donny. Eat something, okay?"

He made a noncommittal noise, but his hand moved to pick up the spoon, and Rebecca sighed before turning to walk into the other room. Every step felt wrong. This was wrong, all of it. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. It was a nightmare that wouldn't end, a horror that she hadn't truly accepted as possible.

In the living room, Eric Pelham lay in the middle of the floor, his eyes tracking the movements of the slow-moving ceiling fan above him. The couch nearby was occupied by Victoria and Dean, who had shown up hours ago and hadn't left his girlfriend's side since. Victoria herself was laying down with her head on the boy's leg, her eyes closed. The girl's face was wet and blotchy from her tears, though the steady rise and fall of her chest made it clear that she had finally fallen asleep.

Amy and Sabah sat together in one of the recliners. Amy's shoulders were shaking while her face was turned into Sabah's shoulder. The Middle Eastern girl glanced up at Rebecca and gave her a nod of acknowledgment before putting a hand against the back of Amy's head, tenderly stroking down while whispering a few consoling words. Not that there was much she could say to ease the sting of losing the girl who had been a sister to Amy for as long as she could truly remember.

Upstairs, she could hear the shower running. It was Neil's third shower that morning, and the one time she had passed by the door earlier, she'd heard the man crying over the sound of the water. She'd stood there, head bowed as she fought the urge to say something, anything before finally walking away.

Passing through the living room, she tried not to disturb anyone. Eric's eyes never left the ceiling fan, his face remaining blank. She'd tried to talk to him earlier, but the boy had shaken her off and asked to be left alone. Now he was just laying there, talking to no one, looking at no one. He had shut down.

The front door was open, and Rebecca could see Carol sitting out on the porch. Letting out a breath, she stepped out to join her, taking a seat beside the slightly older woman without speaking.

The two of them sat on that porch in silence, staring at the street while the occasional car drove past. Neither spoke for several long minutes, and Rebecca was still trying to figure out what she was _supposed_ to say when the silence was instead broken by Carol.

"Mark won't come out of our room. Won't get out of bed. Why... does that piss me off?" Turning to look at Rebecca, she asked again, more earnestly than Rebecca could remember her being any time lately. "Why? I know Mark has problems and this... this is... not helping. I can't be mad at him. I can't. He's got every reason to shut down right now. We all do. But I just—anger is just so much easier than... than... I can't be mad at him. I don't want to. I don't. I can't be there right now. He'll know I'm mad, he'll know I'm upset and it'll hurt him. He'll shut down even more. I have to be here for Sarah, but I just..."

Shifting, Rebecca put an arm around the other woman. "I know, Carol. We know."

"She hates me," the woman said with quiet despair, a certainty to her voice. "My sister hates me."

Flinching at that, Rebecca squeezed the arm around her tighter. "No, no she... she doesn't hate you. It wasn't your fault."

"Yes," Carol was shaking her head. "Yes it was. It was." Her voice was hard, the anger in it quick to rise even if it wasn't directed at Rebecca herself. "You don't understand. That's why she hates me. That's why she has to. She has to. I was there. **I was there.** I should have stopped it. I should've been faster, should've sent them away, should have told Madison to stay back so that he didn't—so that Crystal wouldn't—so that... I... I can't... I can't. I should have. I have to-" With each word, Carol's voice grew more broken, until it became impossible to understand. She spoke a couple more words that Rebecca couldn't decipher, before dropping her head to her knees, shaking violently.

Carol and Rebecca had never been all that close. Rebecca thought that the woman was too impulsive and easily angered, and her stark black and white view of criminals was going to get them in trouble one day. Still, at this moment, she turned to wrap both arms around her. She said nothing, because there was nothing she really _could_ say. Instead, she simply embraced her sister-in-law and let her shake until she was done. For the moment at least. The real crying wouldn't end for a very long time. If ever.

"None of the Empire were out there last night," Carol spoke again eventually. Her voice was slightly steadier than it had been, though the hate in it could have cut through solid steel. "I asked around this morning once everything... once it was over. No one saw them at all. Not a single one all night. They disappeared right after Kaiser—after Sarah killed that **son of a bitch.** Fucking cowards."

Rebecca had guessed that much. The Empire had clearly learned about the death of their leader and it had left them with nothing to do but hide. She was, however, slightly surprised that not a _single one_ had sought to take revenge on any of the Brigade for killing off Kaiser.

Then again, the real damage had already been done.

"Madison's parents?" Carol asked with a hoarse voice after another few seconds of silence.

"I've tried calling them five times already tonight." Rebecca sighed, eyes closing briefly. "I think I need to drive over there. I was going to do that anyway. Can't... can't talk about that over the phone. Thought I might call and... and make sure they were home and... God, I don't know. I don't know. What do I say?" Now there were tears in her eyes as well. "What do I say to them, Carol? How do I tell them that their daughter... that we let their daughter... that we let them... oh God, Carol, it's their daughter. How do I tell them that their daughter is dead? How do I prepare them for that? I'm not—this isn't right. It's wrong. This is so, so wrong. It can't be happening. It can't be. Crystal, she's—she's..."

It was Carol's turn to embrace her. The woman did so, and Rebecca let herself slip away briefly.

And yet, even then, she didn't cry. Her emotions ran wild, her despair a bottomless well. But she didn't actually cry. The actual tears wouldn't come. Why? Why had she been up all night, going through all of this, and still hadn't actually cried? Why couldn't she cry? What was she doing? What was she **feeling** if no tears would actually come? God, she still cried while watching Bambi for Scion's sake. Why couldn't she cry **now,** when it actually mattered? Why couldn't she cry when two innocent girls, including her niece, had been killed? What kind of... monster was she? What was wrong with her?

Straightening eventually, she forced herself to stand. "Thank you." Her voice was weak, and she cleared her throat a couple times before speaking again. "You should eat something too, Carol. Try to get something into the others if you can? I'll... I'll go see if I can talk to Madison's parents."

"Are you going in costume?" Carol asked, her tone empty of any readable emotion. She, like Rebecca, was clearly going through the motions. They knew the things that needed to be said and done, and so they did them even when those things felt wrong or pointless. They carried through the motions.

"No," she replied, shaking her head. "They deserve to look me in the eyes when I tell them the truth. I... I can't stand there in a mask and tell them that their daughter was killed last night. I can't, it wouldn't be-" She stopped short, choking on her words before closing her eyes. "Fuck. I was about to say it wouldn't be fair. Fair. What fucking part of this is fair? What God damn part of it is **fair?** "

"None of it," Carol replied shortly. "Fair has nothing to do with it. It's those fucking Empire sons of bitches. Them. They're all going down. Every last _**fucking**_ one of them." When she spoke again, it was a solemn vow, as serious as Rebeccca had ever heard. "We'll burn their gang to the ground."

For once, as she stepped off the porch and made her way to the car across the street that was hers, Rebecca found herself in full agreement with her sister-in-law. Kaiser may have been dead, but the festering pit of evil that he had mastered was still there. For now. The Brigade would put a stop to that. Before they were done, every last Empire piece of shit was going to be in prison where they belonged.

Even if they had to rip through every other gang in the city to do it.

* * *

For the third time, Rebecca pressed her finger to the doorbell and waited for a second while listening to the chime inside before releasing it. She was standing on the porch of Madison's family's home, trying to rehearse what she was going to say, and failing completely. She still had no more idea of what words to use than she'd had when she left the house. The words just wouldn't come to mind.

Obviously they weren't here at the moment. She had just decided to wait around for them for as long as it took when a noise at the fence drew her attention that way. Instead of Madison's parents, however, she saw a pretty teenage girl with short, pixie-cut red hair pushing her way through the gate in what was clearly a rush. "Madison!" The girl called even as she shoved the gate open. "Madison!"

The girl stopped short at the sight of Rebecca, the third repetition of the name dying on her lips. "M-Oh. Uh, sorry. I'm umm, Emma. I'm looking for Madison. Is... is she home?"

There was a yearning hope in the other girl's voice that broke Rebecca's heart. Clearly this Emma girl and Madison were close friends. And now... now Rebecca couldn't even tell her the truth. Not yet anyway, and not like this. Madison's parents were one thing, but this girl? As much as it hurt, she had to lie.

"No, I... I haven't seen her." She forced the words out, feeling sick and ugly inside as she did so.

The disappointment in the other girl's face was obvious. She looked far more crestfallen than she should have just to hear that her friend wasn't home at the moment, and Rebecca briefly wondered if the girl actually knew more than she had assumed. Carefully, she asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Okay?" The red-haired girl snorted. "Nothing's okay. I thought Maddy might be home, but if her parents were caught, then... then she must've been too. She must be with them."

"Whoa, whoa, wait, what?" Rebecca frowned, the confusion from the girl's words cutting through her desolate grief. "What do you mean, her parents were caught? Caught by who?"

Blinking up at her as if she'd forgotten that Rebecca was there, Emma hesitated. "I have a... person, a person who told me they saw Madison's parents taken by the... the Merchants. I was hoping Madison was here anyway, or that they were lying or mistaken or... or wrong. I don't know. I was hoping."

Rebecca's eyes had widened at that. The Merchants. First Madison was killed by the Empire, and now her family was abducted by the Merchants? No. No, they had to do something. They owed Madison that much.

Emma was squinting at her. "Wait, I know you. I saw you at the mall with Madison and those others."

"Madison w-" Rebecca started before stopping herself. "She's a friend of the family."

"What about her brother?" Emma asked. "What about Trevor? Is he home?"

Trevor... Clements. One of the students in one of her classes. Rebecca should have put that together before now. She shook her head. "No one's home. But look, I'll take care of it, okay? I'll call the police and report them missing. What about your... person, are they the kind of person who will tell the cops what they saw?"

Emma was shaking her head. "No, trust me. It's better if they don't. I umm, I need to go." She took a step backwards, already turning.

"Wait," Rebecca put a hand out to stop the girl. "Are you going to be okay?

For a few seconds, Emma just looked back at her silently, the look on her face unreadable. Then she nodded once. "I'll be fine. I know how to keep myself busy."

"Okay... well," Reaching into her pocket, Rebecca took out one of the cards that the school had given her. "My card. Give me a call if you hear anything else, okay? Like I said," the words nearly choked themselves in her throat. "She's a friend of the family."

Emma took the card without looking at it, shoving the thing into her pocket. "Sure, I uhh, I will." She left then, heading back out the gate with that same unreadable look that made Rebecca continue to stare after her for a few moments after the girl had disappeared from sight.

Finally, Rebecca took a phone from her pocket and glanced around before hitting one of the speed dial buttons. After three rings, it was answered by the Protectorate's pleasant-voiced recording. She hit the four button combination that would skip every waiting line and put her through straight to an on-duty Protectorate member. It was a code known only to select people who worked closely with them.

"Battery?" She spoke a moment later when the transferred call was answered. "It's Fleur. Tell me everything you guys know about the Merchants abducting people last night.

"Yeah. It's personal."

 **Interlude 6B – Rune**

 _ **Monday, April 18th, 2011**_

The blanket-covered figure in the bed whimpered and rolled over. There was a brief moment of silence then before one of the hidden legs kicked out and the whimper turned into a whine. That whine persisted while the figure shook a little more, thrashing in the bed while pitifully muffled words of denial and pleading emerged through both the blanket and the pillow that the figure was clinging to.

Finally having enough, Cassie Herren, known to most as Rune, heaved herself up and off of the chair where she had been trying to quietly read. Crossing the distance to the bed, she stood there staring down at the whining form. "Hey, kid, you're having a nightmare." She spoke simply, uncertain of how exactly to go about this sort of thing. After all, she hadn't really grown up in a touchy-feely household even before she'd been tossed over to her uncle and ended up joining the Nazis at his behest.

When nothing happened save for another violent shudder and a louder whine, she spoke louder. "Kid. Hey, it's a dream. Stop it. Get your..." Awkwardly, she reached a hand down to touch the figure's shoulder. "Dinah, it's okay. Stop it, okay? You're fine. You're-" Groaning inwardly, she sat down gingerly, barely setting herself on the very edge of the bed while giving the young girl's shoulder a shake. "Dinah, you're dreaming. It's just a dream—hey, Dinah, listen, you're-"

All at once, the younger girl jerked a bit. Her head popped out from under the blanket and she gave a loud yelp of fright. Her eyes were wide with terror, and there were even tears there as she looked wildly around the room. After a couple of seconds, those frightened, wet eyes found Cassie perched on the very edge of the bed, and she hurriedly lunged that way with a choked sob.

For her part, Cassie jerked defensively, bringing her hands up to protect herself. But the girl wasn't attacking her. Instead, Rune found herself being embraced so tightly it nearly choked her. Dinah was clinging to her like a lifeline, holding on while her shoulders shook rapidly. Those tears continued to fall, soaking through the older girl's shirt at the shoulder almost immediately.

"Wha-" Taken completely by surprise, Cassie sat there with her arms raised above her head as though surrendering. At first, she tried to shift her way back off the bed, but Dinah just clung tighter to keep her there. She stopped trying to pull away, but did nothing more than sit there with absolutely no idea of what she was supposed to do with this younger girl hugging her so tightly, seeking comfort.

"I—uhh," Hesitantly, feeling uncertain and confused, Cassie slowly lowered one hand to give Dinah the world's most awkward pat on the back. "It's okay," she said slowly, the words and actions completely foreign to her. "It's all right." Another pat came then, while Dinah reacted simply by hugging her even more tightly. Shushing people worked, right? That's what you were supposed to do? "Shh, it's all right." Slowly lowering her other arm, she hooked it around Dinah's back with her hand still stretched out stiffly ahead of it. It was like a mannequin attempting to give a reassuring hug. She was trying to comfort the girl while touching her as little as possible. "Just a dream. Just a dream, kid."

 _Yeah, right,_ she thought. _Just a dream. You weren't_ _ **really**_ _kidnapped by a bunch of evil Nazi shits that are using your power to take over the city. Must have been something you ate._ The bitterness of her thought process confused Cassie into a frown, and she was almost startled to find that her formerly stiff and awkward arm had embraced the younger girl tightly while she had been distracted by her thoughts.

"C-Cassie?" Dinah's hesitant, frail voice spoke up a moment later, right as the older girl grew uncertain again. "What... what..." She tried to go on, but started shaking too much from residual fear. She clung tighter as though seeking comfort in spite of not understanding what was going on. "What happened?"

Shifting her perch on the edge of the bed to put herself further onto it and reduce the risk of falling to the floor with the twelve-year-old clinging to her, Rune hesitated before speaking. "Nightmare. You were kicking and uhh, squirming. You were having a nightmare, that's all. Kind of loud and annoying, so I wanted you to knock it the hell off." Yeah, that was it. She had just wanted the stupid whining and crying to stop so that she could get back to her book and read in peace and quiet.

"Sorry." Dinah's voice was contrite and soft, barely rising above a whisper. She still didn't let go, however. If anything, she was hugging onto Rune even more tightly. "I... I... I'm s-scared."

Taking in a long, deep breath before letting it out, Cassie found herself patting the other girl's back a couple more times. "What are you scared of? You know Kaiser isn't going to hurt you. He'd kill me before he let anything happen to his precious fortune teller. You're too valuable. Fuck, especially now. You saved his ass with that prediction about the cheerleader being able to charge up Bakuda's toy."

"Ninety-eight percent chance her lasers were compatible with it," Dinah confirmed, her voice still quiet. "Eighty-six point two three percent chance the Brigade will wear themselves out attacking every other target before Mr. Kaiser's resources become too strained to handle their campaign against him. Seventy-one point five two seven percent chance this weapon of his does what he wants it to."

Snorting, Cassie nodded. "Which means he's banking everything on a nearly forty percent chance of failure when you put it all together."

Dinah was quiet for a few long seconds before she spoke again. "I think he, umm, sort of has to? Aren't his bosses really mad at him for l-losing their names and stuff that the Undersiders stole?"

"The Gesellschaft aren't his bosses," Cassie started to correct. "They're..." Trailing off, she hesitated before rolling her eyes dismissively. "Oh, whatever. I guess bosses works. They sure scare him a lot."

Whimpering, Dinah nodded before finally releasing the older girl. She sat back, her eyes still red-rimmed. "H-he's mad at me b-because they're mad at him." Gulping, she added, "Are they really bad?"

"Gesellschaft?" Cassie paused before shrugging. "Dunno, never had any reason to meet any of them. But they scare Kaiser enough to run this Hail Mary play, so I'd say... they're pretty damn scary."

Sitting back on the bed, Dinah bit her lip while staring at Rune for almost a minute. Finally, she spoke up tentatively while running the back of her hand over her damp eyes. "Can I ask you a question?"

"You **can** do a lot of things," Cassie replied automatically. "You just proved it by asking that."

Dinah smiled slightly at that, clearing her throat. "Sorry, I meant, may I ask you a question?"

Regarding the girl that should have been a meek little victim for a moment, Cassie finally nodded.

Looking straight at her, meeting her gaze in a way that seemed a little off for someone who had been woken up from a tears-inducing nightmare only a couple of minutes earlier, Dinah asked, "How come you're in here with me? I mean, I thought Mr. Kaiser said that I was gonna have to have other people watch me sometimes since you've gotta watch those people from the Brigade now."

Shrugging at that, Cassie retorted, "Hey, if you don't appreciate my company, I could always let Hookwolf or Logi have a turn babysitting you so they're here the next time you start whining in your sleep. It's not like I don't have better things to do. Maybe you can cuddle up to them."

"No, no, I like your company," Dinah affirmed with a quick nod. "I'm glad you were here, really. They're scary and umm, bad. Those guys, they're really bad people."

Snorting, Cassie eyed the girl. "We're all bad, kid. Wasn't that your point before? We're all just big, bad, evil Nazis. Racist fucks that don't deserve the air we breathe because we happen to object to faggots, chinks, and kikes getting everything they fucking want while the white people get shit on constantly."

Dinah tilted her head for a moment in silence, then shifted around and leaned over to the opposite side of the bed. Plucking up her discarded jeans, the girl turned back and held her arms out before unceremoniously dropping them onto Cassie's head. "There, that's better."

"Hey, what the-" Swiping the legs of the jeans to knock them off her head and back onto the bed, Cassie demanded, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Shrugging at her, Dinah answered in a calm voice, "I guess I just thought that if you really wanted to keep saying stuff that was 'pants on head' stupid, then you should probably go all the way."

Eyes widening at that, Cassie grabbed the pants off the bed and hurled them to the side of bed just for something physical to do. At the same time, she sputtered angrily, "What the fuck did you just say!?"

Uncowed, Dinah continued to stare at her. "You're smart, Cassie. We talked about this stuff before. That racist stuff? You know it's not true. You know it's stupid and it doesn't make any sense. You wanna be a bad guy, okay. There's reasons to be a bad guy. Money, power, fame, stuff like that. But race stuff? That's dumb, and you know it's dumb. Those people didn't do anything to you or anyone else besides be born different than you were. You might as well go to the hospital where the babies are and choose who to hate for the rest of their lives by playing eenie meenie miney moe. Is that logical, huh?"

When Rune had no response other than to continue glaring at her, the twelve-year-old continued. "So yes, when you say stuff like that, it's pants-on-head stupid so you might as well look the part."

Cassie shoved herself up and off of the bed at that point, shaking slightly as she pointed her finger at the girl. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about, you little bitch. You don't know what I know. You haven't seen what I've seen. I've been in Juvie, all right? I've been in the cage and I've seen how those fucking animals act. I've seen what they do in there, heard the shit they say. They're just as racist as I am. They'd fucking jump me the second I gave them a God damn chance. You turn your back on those violent pieces of shit and you get a shiv in the back. So don't fucking tell me what I know or don't know. I've seen the way they act when they get some power. They ganged up on me, get it? I had to go to solitary to save my fucking life because those nigger pussies were gonna kill me. I was trapped in there with those **animals** and the walls were closing in. It was so small and they were yelling and I just wanted out. The walls kept getting smaller and I wanted out. I wanted the walls to stop shrinking. I wanted the walls to get the fuck out of my way. I wanted the walls to move. So they did. The walls moved because I wanted them to. They moved because I told them to, and then I got out. Now I'm here. You get it? Save your stupid, pointless flowery bullshit about equality for someone that hasn't seen how those people act in prison. Save it for someone they haven't tried to kill for not being like them."

Looking down at the bed and then back up again, Dinah finally spoke softly. "I'm sorry, Cassie." Before Rune could reply to that, she continued. "Not for what I said. That stuff is still stupid, and you know it. I'm sorry you had to see all that. I'm sorry you got into fights. I'm sorry people tried to kill you. I'm sorry you were so lonely and scared that you triggered. That's awful." Swallowing, she was quiet briefly, though Cassie thought she saw the girl flinch slightly as though in pain before she went on. "But someone else doing something bad to you isn't an excuse to hate every person who kinda looks like them. That's like if the person who hurt you had blue eyes and you decided that proved that all people who have blue eyes were worthless and evil. It's _**dumb**_ , Cassie. You know it's dumb. You know those people aren't all like that." Reaching down, the girl picked up the TV remote. Before Rune could speak, she flipped on the television and switched the station until the screen showed a young black boy playing the piano in some random show. Stopping there, Dinah asked, "Did **he** hurt you? Does he deserve to die just because his skin is darker than yours?" She flipped the station again. "There, she looks Jewish. Should she die because of that? Should she die because you think she looks sort of like some people that aren't _exactly like you?_ Does that make any sense at all, Cassie? Does it?" Three more times she flipped through channels before stopping. "Hispanic, a couple of gay guys, a Chinese girl. Should they all just die because they're different from you? Look." She hit the button rapidly, switching channels too quickly to see what was on. "Let's play that game. Next person we land on is somebody who did something bad to us. Eenie, meenie, miney, and moe!" Stopping on a station, she announced. "There, she's got brown hair. Now we have to hate everyone who has brown hair, forever, just because _this_ person had brown hair. **Does that make any sense?** Tell me. Tell me how that's not stupid."

There was silence for a few seconds before Cassie opened her mouth. Before she could say anything, however, there was a single knock at the door before it opened. Kaiser stuck his head in. He paused upon seeing the two of them. "Ah, you're here after all, Rune. I thought you would have left for school by now. How is our... other guest doing?"

"Still asleep, last I knew," Rune replied. "Vanessa's sitting in there with her. What about the other-other one? How's the uh, charging bit going?"

"It will take some time," Kaiser answered simply. "But she is behaving so far." To Dinah, he added, "Thanks to you, of course. Before long, this project will be complete and the threat hanging over all of our heads will have been dealt with."

Cassie watched Dinah while responding, "I guess that means the Gesellschaft are still pissed off?"

Kaiser glanced to her before nodding. "They certainly aren't happy. But no, I was referring to the threat that Bakuda's newest device is meant for."

Blinking at that, Cassie frowned. "She's making a big fucking bomb. I thought it was meant for Lung. He's the 'big threat' you're all worried about?"

Smiling grimly, Kaiser shook his head. "Dinah, my dear, what was it you said again about the city in one month's time?"

Obediently, Dinah replied, "Ninety-four percent chance at least twenty seven percent of the population is killed or otherwise leaves the city before June first. Eighty-three percent chance at last thirty five percent of the population is killed or leaves. Seventy-six percent chance at last forty-two percent of the population is killed or leaves. Seventy-one percent chance at least fifty-three percent of the population-"

"What the fuck?" Rune cut in, staring at that. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Seventy percent chance half the god damn city fucking croaks or takes off? That's... that's not Lung. That's not even Gesellschaft ."

"You're right," Kaiser confirmed. "Our actions in abducting Laserdream to force her into charging Bakuda's device have nothing to do with either the ABB or our disgruntled allies. Those actions were born of these slightly more desperate circumstances."

"Endbringer," Cassie finally managed. "Those are Endbringer casualties."

Kaiser nodded once. "Yes. And that is what Bakuda's bomb is for. That is what all of this is about.

"We are going to save this city."

 **Interlude 6C – Purity**

 _ **Monday, April 18th, 2011**_

"What the _**hell**_ does that asshole think he's doing?" The words were harsh, yet the voice that spoke them did so in a happy, cheerful tone that would better fit a declaration of joy than the actual words.

Smiling brightly as she held her heart and soul bundled into her arms, Kayden Russel cooed gently. "That's right, baby-girl, Daddy's a worthless, evil piece of garbage. Yesss he is, yesss he iiiiis."

From the other side of the kitchen where the stove was, Dorothy Schmidt spoke up conversationally. "Well, that's different. Usually you sound unhappy about your ex-husband. What changed?"

Kayden glanced that way, taking in the sight of the other woman. Dorothy looked like the very picture of an old 1950's housewife, slaving away at the stove. She wore a pretty dress along with a frilly apron, and her hair and makeup had been done to perfection before she had ever entered the kitchen.

Just like it was done every single morning, like clockwork. Not because Dorothy had made the conscious decision that she wanted to be presentable, but because this was what her messed up mind had convinced her was ordinary. This image from some long-forgotten idealized family sitcom was what the woman believed made her appear to be normal, because she had no idea what normal **was.**

"Oh, I'm so pissed off I could fly out and take the top couple of floors off that god damn tower of his," Kayden replied without changing her tone of voice. She kissed the top of her baby girl's head tenderly before setting her into the high chair, locking the tray into place. "But I don't want to upset Aster."

"That's a good idea." That came from the table, where Dorothy's husband Geoff sat staring at the newspaper that he had been holding in place for the past half hour. Like his wife, the man was dressed up as though the very second that breakfast was over, he would be off to the office with his briefcase in tow. Just like he was every morning, and just like every morning, Kayden doubted that he had any idea what any of the articles in the newspaper that he had been staring at for nearly half an hour actually said. He simply sat there with his eyes pointed toward it the way he thought he was _supposed to_.

"After all," the man continued without looking away from the paper, "she cries too much already."

Shaking her head, Kayden poured out some cheerios onto the tray for Aster to play with and munch on. "She doesn't cry more than any other child, Geoff." Smiling then, she gazed adoringly as her precious heart grabbed for the cereal while cooing to herself, she added, "Actually, she cries less than a lot."

"I don't like crying," the man replied. There was no threat or even harshness to his tone as he continued, "It's an annoying habit. It shouldn't be rewarded or indulged. They have to learn better."

Before Kayden could respond to that, Dorothy stepped away from the stove with a coffee pot in one hand. "Put the paper away, it's time to eat." She announced before settling her free hand onto her husband's shoulder. Without affection, automatically, she bent and kissed the top of his head.

Geoff nodded, setting aside the paper that he hadn't read at all. "Yes dear. Mmm. Smells delicious."

They had said and done the same thing the day before, and the day before that, and as long as Kayden had known them. The routine never differed in any substantial way. They carried through playing their parts, like aliens who were acting out something they saw in some old Earth video without any idea of what the words and gestures actually **meant.** Mimicking their idea of average human behavior.

Dorothy had filled Geoff's mug with coffee, and offered more to Kayden. She accepted, and then helped the other woman carry far, far too many plates laden with food over to the table. As usual, the woman had prepared too much, even if one of their normal breakfast partners hadn't been missing.

No, not missing. That implied that they didn't know where James was. They knew _precisely_ where he was: locked up securely in Protectorate custody after Manpower had nearly killed him.

As if in response to her thoughts, the nearby door was practically flung open before the pretty woman right in the last vestiges of her twenties came through. "We can't get to him," Gabriele Anders announced in a tone of voice that was clearly annoyed. "The Protectorate's basically escorting him straight to the Birdcage. They've got Armsmaster, Dauntless, Assault, and Battery, and what has to be a good two dozen armed agents with itchy trigger fingers all riding escort for the transport." Sitting at the table, she took a phone from her pocket, her frown of annoyance turning to a slight smile as she read something on the screen before typing out a response.

"Is all that more for us," Kayden asked, "Or to discourage the Brigade from taking any more revenge?"

"I don't think it's an either/or situation." The answer came not from Gabriele, but from the younger boy who came in after the woman. Barely sixteen, though his powers made him appear much larger and more heavily muscled than most sixteen-year-olds, Nicholas Kinder, who had taken the name of Browbeat, was the most recent addition to their group. "It's more like nobody's going to stop this transport from dumping this guy into prison, no matter what side they're coming from."

The boy moved to the table and tugged out a chair before grabbing a plate. He would have eaten at home before leaving for 'school', of course, but he was still a teenager. Kayden was sure he'd be hungry again within a couple hours, even after stuffing himself with the food that Dorothy had prepared.

He didn't normally eat with them, considering his parents had no idea what he had gotten himself into. Even today, he **should** have been in school. But after last night, Gabriele had asked for his help to scout out the PRT's defenses, and he had agreed. Considering the way the boy stared at Gabby, Kayden was pretty sure the woman could have asked him to contribute to the cause by putting a nail through his own hand and the boy would at least seriously consider it. Poor kid. He really didn't stand a chance, and not just because he was too young. He also wasn't Gabriele's... type.

Kayden knew about the woman's preference toward other women. It was one of the reasons that Gabriele had been so willing to split from the Empire that her father had built up, even before her brother, Kayden's ex-husband, had murdered the man through the proxy named Hookwolf.

It had taken Kayden some time to get used to the idea. After so many years as a part of the Empire, learning the rhetoric that was spouted there, she hadn't been able to help the initial sense of disgust. But Gabriele had been her friend, who had helped her come to understand a lot of what was wrong with Max. The two of them had been close and, eventually, Kayden had grown to accept that part of the other woman. In some ways it still made her reflexively uncomfortable, but she was trying to be better.

The two of them had begun to plan to split from the Empire then, even before they had learned the truth about what had happened to Allfather. Kayden had been growing more uneasy throughout her pregnancy, and when Gabriele had confided her sexual orientation with her (and once she had grown to accept that revelation as much as possible), the two had decided that they couldn't stay. Plans had been made, which had later been accelerated as soon as they'd learned about Max's treachery.

They had split, leaving the Empire to form what was supposed to simply be a duo. But Night and Fog had followed after Kayden. Somehow, she had gained their loyalty in a way she couldn't even explain. And she doubted _they_ could explain it any better. Hell, even learning the truth about Gabriele's sexuality hadn't been enough to drive them away, though both said that they would find ways of convincing the woman of how wrong she was. They hadn't exactly _accepted_ her choices, but they weren't openly attacking or betraying her for them either. Their reasoning... Kayden couldn't begin to guess at. She still had no idea why they felt so loyal to her instead of Kaiser.

So those two had joined them, followed shortly by Krieg himself. The older man had originally come along not out of any desire to turn against the Empire, but because of the promise that he had made to Allfather that he would protect and watch over Gabriele for as long as he could.

Of course, learning what the others knew about Kaiser and Hookwolf's betrayal and murder of his old friend had brought him even more fully on board. He'd wanted to go after them immediately, but Gabriele had convinced him that it was the wrong time. Kaiser had far too many people to watch his back and keep him safe for a frontal assault to work. They had no evidence of the truth about Allfather's murder. So they needed to wait for the right time while chipping away at their allies-turned-enemies.

And now it seemed like they had waited too long. If they really couldn't get Krieg away from the authorities before they dumped him into the Birdcage, the Faithful would be considerably weakened.

"What about your mole?" Kayden asked Gabriele, who was still typing on her phone. "Is that who you're talking to? What did they say about Kaiser? Why the hell would he go this far? Killing a couple of teenagers? He's completely lost his mind."

"No, we haven't been in contact yet," Gabriele admitted. "This is... someone else." Her cheeks actually pinked very slightly, raising Kayden's curiosity before the woman pressed on. "Give it some time, our friend will let us know what's going on. Right now, I think we're going to have to accept that we can't get Krieg back. It's too risky."

"It would have been nice to have advance warning from this mole of yours," Geoff pointed out while cutting up his piece of ham with precise, almost mechanical movements. "So that we could have made sure to be off the streets before he made all the heroes so angry."

"Yes, dear," Dorothy agreed. "We will have to voice our displeasure with the man as soon as possible."

Looking up from his half-finished plate, Nicholas frowned with obvious uncertainty. "Uhh, did I miss something? I mean, isn't Kaiser supposed to be, you know, sort of... dead?"

"He's not dead." The answer came from all four of the adults in the room, with complete certainty. After glancing at the other three, Gabriele went on. She was, after all, the one that the boy listened to the most. His crush made sure of that. "My brother isn't stupid or clumsy enough to die so easily. Whatever happened, he had a way out. The rest of the Empire disappeared and went under ground too quickly for him not to have been guiding them. If Hookwolf had **really** been in charge, they would have fought the Brigade straight on. So no, he's not dead. Why he's pretending to be, I couldn't say."

Aster was fussing for a drink, so Kayden rose and fixed her sippy cup before bringing it over to the high chair. "Indeed. Max is a lot of things, but suicidal isn't one of them. There's something going on."

"Another thing your contact should already have explained," Dorothy noted disapprovingly.

"Give them time," Gabriele replied. "It's not exactly easy to-" There was a soft chime, and she pulled out a small, ordinary looking black flip phone, different from the one she had been using a minute earlier. "Ah, there we go. See? I told you they'd find a way."

Going silent then, the woman read the message on the phone carefully. Kayden watched, curiously, as Gabriele read it through at least twice before speaking. "Ah. The children haven't been killed after all."

"Hmm?" Nicholas blinked up again, swallowing the large mouthful of food before he spoke, a habit that all four of them had drilled into the adolescent boy. "Laserdream and Archive aren't dead?"

Gabriele shook her head. "No, they're alive. Apparently Bakuda's bomb has to be charged up. Kaiser wanted to abduct Laserdream to do that, and Archive was a way of keeping her in line."

"So he takes those two and makes the rest of the Brigade think they're dead so that they go crazy and start attacking every conceivable target," Kayden observed. "Which includes us."

"Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't a coincidence," Gabriele agreed. "Now we, and anyone else the Brigade happens to notice, have to focus on protecting ourselves from them instead of dealing with Max and his group of traitors. Meanwhile, he's free to further his own plans."

"With even less people than we had before," Geoff pointed out with a frown. "There's really no way to get to Krieg before they drop him in the Birdcage? What if we contacted Gesellschaft?"

"No," Kayden snapped quickly. "The last thing we want is to owe them anything. And besides, even if they _would_ help, which is doubtful, they couldn't get people organized and here in time without calling in even more favors that **we'd** have to repay. They already know we're not their allies in this city. Giving them any more reason to pay attention to what we're doing is a bad idea."

"So we just let Krieg end up in the Birdcage?" Nicholas asked. He didn't seem all that broken up by the idea, which Kayden understood. Krieg hadn't exactly been warm and welcoming, and he definitely hadn't dropped his less-than-savory beliefs. He wasn't there because he believed in their mission to rid the city of crime and gangs. He was there because he had sworn an oath to Allfather, and Krieg took his oaths seriously. Particularly those that had been made to one of his oldest friends and allies.

That and he'd wanted to fold Kaiser in half the wrong way and feed the man's head into his backside.

"We don't have much of a choice," Gabriele replied with a low sigh. Kayden understood that as well. For all his faults, Krieg had been like an uncle to her. He might not have accepted her choice of lifestyle, and he might have openly said that he would continue to try to convince her that she was wrong to like girls the way that she did. But he never would have hurt her, and he would have literally broken anyone who tried, no matter what their reasoning was. He hated Gabriele's choices and desires, but he was also _fiercely_ protective of her, and had been her entire life. The idea of not being able to help him in return when he was about to be imprisoned for the rest of **his** had to be making her stomach twist itself into knots.

"Don't worry," Kayden assured her friend. "Max may think he has the upper hand right now. But don't forget, we still have our secret weapon."

"Right, the mole," Nicholas spoke up hesitantly. "You uhh, you don't think Kaiser's gonna figure it out or anything, do you? Cuz it sounds like that could be really bad."

"No," Gabriele shook her head. "He won't. Trust me, he has no idea what's really going on. It's dangerous, but we always knew it would be. That's why we were so careful before we started this. She has all the information we had about everyone in the Empire, and I taught her everything I could about how to talk to people. She may not be able to contact us very often, even with that tinker phone, but when she does, I'm helping her know what to say and how to say it. Not that she needs as much help as you'd think.

"Dinah was already a good liar, even before we met."


	7. Arc 7: Bonding, Bondage, and Bandits

_**Notes –** Hellking666: As with Madison, I have no preconceived notion of romantic pairings for Sophia. In this particular case, her reactions weren't hinting at anything more specific than the fact that Brian is an attractive young man. And as far as Madison goes, brainwashing was definitely not the intention, as you'll see in this arc. Oh, and this arc should also attend to your remark that Emma had little to contribute plot-wise last time. ;) _

_Luan Mao: Glad you enjoyed that, and I'm not perfect with grammar but I do try. The people that help correct the mistakes I make are also wonderful for that._

 _Finally, as a general note, I would like you guys to know that the updates for this fic and for Atonement will slow down a bit as I try to split my attention between them and the new original online web serial I've started for myself, which will be focused on a teenage girl training in a mysterious otherworldly school to protect humanity from the monsters trying to invade the mundane world. If you are interested at all, you can find it by going to ceruleanscrawling dot wordpress dot com. If not, please continue to enjoy these fanfictions anyway._

 **7-01 – Emma**

 _ **Monday, April 18th, 2011**_

Madison was in trouble. Madison and her family had been taken by the Merchants. Those were the only thoughts that I'd been able to hold in my head throughout my entire time-frozen jog back to where the brand spiffy new secret base that Tattletale had brought the rest of us to the night before. The Merchants had Madison and her family. I couldn't just leave that alone, even if we weren't talking.

I'd been forced to take several breaks on the way here thanks to my annoying need to breathe. It happened again near the mouth of the alley that led to the entrance. As time went back to normal, I half-stumbled onward, using a hand against the wall to catch and guide myself for a few steps.

Madison, Madison, have to help Madison. Have to help her family. Those words kept repeating themselves in my mind as I stumbled, nearly falling in my rush to get to the entrance. I was so focused on those thoughts that the fact I didn't need to _use_ the entrance didn't even occur to me until I was right at the door. My hand reached for the hole to find the button, which raised the thought that I didn't need to use the button at all because I could just float through the door with my power. And **that** thought reminded me that I could have entered the building from any point, not just at the door itself.

That realization was enough to slow me down for a few seconds. I stood there, hand frozen mid-way to the button, thinking about just how crazy I'd look if I came bursting into the building shouting my head off about rescuing some old friend. Even if the other Undersiders had been the type to go about doing heroic deeds, they probably wouldn't listen to some red-faced lunatic wheezing and panting her way through a babbling, utterly incoherent explanation on why they should. So no, that definitely wasn't the way to convince them to help. And if I was going to save Madison and her family, I **needed** their help.

So I had to calm down. Which wasn't easy, considering the images that refused to stop running through my mind. My fear for what my old friend might be going through while I just stood there was almost overwhelming enough to drive me into a crazed panic again, but I balled my fists up and took several deep breaths. As hard as it was, as worthless as it made me feel, I forced myself to count to ten slowly.

Breathing out, then in again while my fists clenched tighter, I counted back down to one. "You won't help anyone," I said aloud to myself, "if your new teammates decide you're a psychopath."

"Eh," a voice spoke up from behind me. "I dunno, might make you fit in more, to tell you the truth."

Yelping as my heart hurled itself into the driver's seat of a race car and hit the gas, I spun toward the voice. Eyes wide from surprise, I blurted, "Alec!" Flushing at the sight of the pretty boy standing there with an eyebrow raised, I tried to catch my breath. "Don't **do** that, jeeze! Where'd you come from?"

That cocky little smirk returned as the boy shrugged. "Well, when a man and a woman like each other very much, because the man is an immoral manipulative narcissistic control freak and the woman looked real pretty in that waitress dress and didn't happen to be immune to emotion manipulation powers, they spend some time together and before you know it, a little baby pops out."

I blanched in spite of myself. "Right, uh, your dad's a... a cape? Wait, emotion manipulator. Does that-" The idea of who Alec's father might be filled my head all of a sudden and my eyes went wide.

"Fuck." Interrupting, Alec shook his head. "Probably shouldn't have said that. Never mind. Forget it."

Catching his expression, I nodded. "Okay, well, I guess the lesson is your father's just an amoral-"

"Immoral," he corrected absently, like he'd done it so many times he didn't even think about it anymore. "Amoral means you don't know the difference. Trust me, he knows." Something like a humorless, dark smile touched his face then. "He knows exactly what he's doing, Squirrel."

Blinking, I frowned uncertainly at the boy as he leaned casually against the nearby wall. "Squirrel?"

That easy, careless smile returned, replacing the dark look that had taken over his face since he had mentioned his father. "Sure. You know, you're always fidgety, you never stop looking everywhere, you keep disappearing to run around, even the hair." He gestured to my head. "Squirrel."

My mouth opened and then shut. I wasn't sure how I felt about that name, but something about it made me blush. For a moment, I'd _almost_ forgotten why I was in such a hurry. Then I blurted, "Madison!"

It was Alec's turn to blink. "Uh, Denver? Richmond? Boise? Are we just naming state capitals? I'm going to have to start over if we are, cuz the only way I know them is with that _Animaniacs_ song."

"No, no," I shook my head quickly. "My friend, my old friend, sort of..." Shaking off that confusion, I pressed on. "She and her parents were taken by the Merchants when they were abducting hostages."

Rather than look concerned, Alec's expression remained blank. "Sucks. What're you gonna do?"

"Save them," I answered firmly, without even thinking about it. "She was my friend, Alec. I have to help her. I was... sort of hoping not to do it by myself. I mean, I know we're not supposed to be heroes."

He nodded in confirmation. "Really not. Pretty much as far from heroes as you can get without getting into kill order territory. You'd be better off telling the Protectorate about it and letting them handle it."

"No!" The loud denial burst from me instantly. "I don't trust them, Alec. They don't care about anything except their image. Believe me, there's no point to depending on those guys to do anything."

He shrugged idly at that. "Not gonna argue with that. But you need more than a sob story if you want to convince the rest of us to stick our necks out for your friend. Like you said, we're not heroes."

Part of me wanted to blurt that he should help save those people because it was the right thing to do. But I stopped myself. That wasn't the right way to talk to Alec, or any of the others. They—we—were villains. Not the horrible, murdering kind, but at least thieves. I needed to offer them something in return. Closing my eyes, I lowered my head and thought about the problem for a few seconds before opening them to look back up. The boy was still standing there, watching me curiously before I spoke. "Okay, can you get the others and bring them up to meet in the umm," I thought about the description Tattletale had given of where all the rooms were in this place. "In the meeting room on the third floor?"

Regarding me for another moment before shrugging, Alec reached out to hit the button that would open the door. "You figure out how to get everyone on board with your daring rescue plan?"

"I hope so," I admitted. "Because even if you guys don't help me, I'll just have to do it by myself."

"One you versus all of the Merchants?" Alec shook his head. "Probably wouldn't get very far."

"I know," I acknowledged quietly. "But I don't care. I'm not abandoning my friend. Not again."

* * *

"Money." I spoke the single word loudly and clearly as soon as the rest of the team had come trudging into the rather elegant looking meeting room. It looked like something out of some Fortune 500 company. The wooden table in the middle of the room was long enough to fit seven chairs on each side of it. There was a projector in the middle that was pointed at the wall at one end where a screen was. At the opposite end, where the person running the meeting was supposed to be, there was a touch screen computer built into the table that was meant to control not only the projector and screen, but the room temperature, lights, the nearby windows, the door, and a bunch of other things I hadn't figured out yet.

Lisa, looking tired considering the early hour, yawned before frowning at me. "What money?"

Tyler, on the other hand, looked wide awake. She stretched out, hooking her arms behind her head while openly staring at me. "If you're looking for money, babe, we could set up one of those kissing booths like they had at the fairs. I'd be your first three hundred or so customers." She winked. "Of course, by then you'd be ruined for anyone else. But I promise, you would totally enjoy the process."

My face pinked slightly and I shook my head. "Not money for me, money for you guys."

"We get kissing booths too?" Alec put in with a grin. "How much are we charging for Tats? Because on one hand, I feel like those of us with more experience should charge more since we know what we're doing. But on the other hand, a kiss from her is probably worth more because of the rarity, you know?"

This was met with a high five from Tyler, while Lisa scowled at him. "No one's kissing anyone."

"Better not be," Rachel grunted from the other side of the room where she stood scratching the ears of one of her dogs. She had refused to sit at the table. "Or I'm leaving. Might just leave anyway, if you don't get to the point." This was said while she squinted directly at me. "What do you want?"

I breathed out before starting. "I want to rescue the people that the Merchants kidnapped." Before the protests could drown me out, I pressed on. "One of my friends, Madison, and her parents were taken. They're in trouble, and we have to help them." Quickly, I amended, "I mean, _**I**_ have to help them. I know it's not any of your business. It's not. We're not heroes, and they're nothing to you. But she means something to me. We don't hang out anymore or anything, but... it's complicated. I can't let her down. Not now. So I'm going to help her. But if you guys help, I know how it can be worth your time."

"This is where that money thing comes in?" Lisa guessed, looking wide awake now as she studied me.

I nodded. "Exactly. The Merchants have money. They have supplies. They sell drugs and all kinds of other things. They have about as many capes as we do, but they have a _lot_ of foot soldiers to move their product and bring in the moolah. And right now, they're not spread out. They're laying low, all clustered together wherever they've got the hostages. And that's going to be the most secure place the Merchants have. It's gonna be the place they think is the safest spot for anything they own. Which means-"

Lisa interrupted. "It'll be where they stash most of their funds too." She smiled faintly. "You want us to cripple the Merchants by yoinking their hostages _**and**_ all their life savings."

Once again, I nodded. "To be divided evenly, among you guys. I'm doing this regardless, because I have to help Madison. So it's not fair that I get paid and get what I want too. I get to help my friend, and you guys get to divide the loot. Plus it'll mean we beat the Merchants, so people will stop, uhh..."

"Stop thinking we're yesterday's news," Tyler finished for me. "They already know that Grue switched sides. The Protectorate made that clear. So now they think we're gonna fade away without our leader."

"Right," I sighed. "So we have to show them that we're still here, that we still matter. We do that by beating the Merchants, taking all their resources, and releasing their hostages so that we don't drag the Protectorate down on top of _ **us**_. Then we'll have the reputation and the funds we need to do whatever we want to do from that point. This uhh, boss of yours," I nodded to Lisa. "He'll have to be impressed."

The other girl looked thoughtful for a moment, sitting back in her chair while she considered my words. "Hit the Merchants, steal their stash, and make the heroes look incompetent while we do their jobs for them? It'd make them look worse if they come after us too hard right after we save those hostages."

"Like I said before," I nodded toward Alec. "All they care about is their image. We tweak their nose in a way that they can't really come after us for without making themselves look even worse. And we get paid in the process, with money that the Merchants can't even report stolen."

"What do you guys think?" Lisa asked, looking toward the others.

From where he was leaning back in his chair, Alec replied. "Sure. The Merchants are losers, but they've got money. I like money. So let's take it away from them."

Tyler nodded in agreement. "I'm down for that. Rather do something interesting than just sit around, and that sounds _super_ interesting. So yeah, let's humiliate some Merchant creeps."

Everyone's eyes moved to Rachel, who stood there silently for a few long seconds. She wasn't looking at anyone, all of her attention seemingly focused on Brutus as she scratched behind his ears and ignored us.

Finally, she looked up and stared at me. "If you sell us out, or abandon us, or fuck this in any way just to help yourself, you're dead." Her tone was flat, her eyes hard as she glared. "Got it?"

I nodded without breaking her gaze. "I won't. I'm being up front with you guys. I want to save Madison, but we can also make money out of the deal. It'll be worth it, I promise."

She continued to glare at me for another few seconds before dropping her gaze with a muttered, "Whatever."

"Sounds like we're doing it then," Lisa straightened in her chair, looking toward me. "So what first, leader-lady?"

My mouth opened and then shut as I blinked at her. "Leader? What do you mean, leader?"

"This was your plan," she pointed out. "And you're the one that worked out how to talk to us and get everyone on board. Grue's gone, so we need someone to be in charge."

I shook my head quickly. "But that's you."

Lisa laughed. "Hell no. I'm not leadership material, Emma. That's not me. I'm Intel. I know how to push people's buttons, but I don't always know how or when to stop. And I'm not great at inspiring people and whatever else needs to be done. That's not me."

"But... but..." I protested, flustered. "I just joined you guys."

Shrugging, Lisa gestured around the room. "None of us fit the mold. Grue was the leader because he was good at it. You could be too, if you wanted to. You've been a leader before."

I flinched, blanching. "No. Not that kind of leader. I... I can't be that kind of leader."

"Then be a better one," she replied. "Your skill at leading has nothing to do with how you used it or who you led." Her eyes met mine. "We need a leader, Emma. That's you. Not me. Not Alec. Not Tyler. Not Rachel. You. You can do it. Try."

"But I-" I flushed, staring first at her and then at the others. "You guys are okay with this?"

"You betray us, I'll still kick your ass." Rachel shot back. "Don't care what you call yourself."

Tyler and Alec were nodding, looking unconcerned. Neither of them cared about being the leader, Rachel knew she couldn't do it, and Lisa had passed it off to me. There wasn't anyone else.

Swallowing, still feeling uneasy about the whole situation, I finally nodded. "Okay... I... just for now. We'll try it this time, for this mission. But if it doesn't work, we figure something else out. Okay?"

"Sure," Lisa nodded. "So like I said, what first, leader-lady?"

I still wasn't sure about all of this I **definitely** wasn't sure about this leader thing. It was too soon. But if Lisa wasn't going to take it, someone had to. And if it meant rescuing Madison from those drug-pushing creeps, I'd do it.

Biting my lip, I hesitated as more doubt filled me for a moment before I shoved it away. "First," I replied while straightening up. "We talk about what powers the Merchant capes have. Then we go over how to neutralize them."

Tyler raised her hand. "I've got a couple ideas about that."

"Great." The worry about Madison was still hanging over the back of my conscience, but I set it aside to focus on what was important. "Time to humiliate the Merchants."

Alec waved a hand. "You mean _**beyond**_ the fact that they're Merchants?"

I snorted in spite of myself. "Yes, Alec, beyond the fact that they're Merchants."

"Wow," he shook his head in mock surprise. "That's a lot of humiliation."

"Yup," I nodded, smiling a little bit in spite of myself. "So let's get started."

 **7-02 – Sophia**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 (The day after Redshift was named leader of the Undersiders)**_

"I said I was sorry, okay? How many times do I have to say it?" The petulant voice contained just enough genuine remorse hidden behind the annoyance to stop me from slapping the girl it belonged to.

It was Aisha, of course. She stood there in Bryce's family's unused (up until recently) garage with her arms folded tightly against her chest, trying her best to stare me down. I was very nearly tempted to wish her luck with that, considering the people who had tried and failed at that already.

It was Tuesday evening, and around forty-eight hours had passed since the Merchants had escaped with their prisoners. That would have been bad enough as it was, but having seen Madison's parents on that bus made it worse. Plus there was the fact that, judging from the terse response text I'd gotten from Emma on the subject, Madison herself was likely there as well. Hell, judging from how the text had been phrased, I figured Emma blamed me for not saving them. She definitely hadn't been in the mood to chat. But then, she rarely was these days.

For once, I couldn't blame her. I _should_ have been able to stop those assholes. I would have, if the girl standing in front of me hadn't run straight off and gotten herself hypnotized. Those people would be safe right now if Aisha had just **listened** to me. I'd been so pissed off at the time that I'd barely been able to drag the girl back to Bryce's and then leave so that I wouldn't fucking strangle her.

Now, even with those two days of time to cool off, I was still almost at choking-level. It was taking all I had to clench my fists behind my back while I stood there staring at this girl. Inwardly, I just kept reminding myself that she hadn't known better. She was new. Part of me wanted to know why I was _bothering_ to hold myself back. That part of me just wanted to blow off this whole operation for being the idiotic idea that it obviously was. Having a second cape identity? What the hell had I been thinking?

"Pfft, screw this." Aisha's face twisted up a little before she reached out to grab her jacket out of the hands of the two imps who were holding it out to her. She started for the door with a roll of her eyes.

"Wait, hey!" Bryce, who had been sitting out of the way in a wheeled desk chair that he had dragged out from somewhere, rolled into view. "Where're you going? We've still got shit to do tonight."

Nearing the door, Aisha spun back, her finger raised to point at me while her voice rose. "She's not doing anything. I know that look. I've seen it plenty of times, okay? That's the look people give when they give up. She just quit. She's already gone, dude. She's practically out the door already, halfway to whatever her better life is. point is, I'm not the first one quitting. Just the first one you can see."

I was offended, even though she was right. I had been ready to quit. I had been half a second from telling them both to screw off as I walked out the same door that Aisha was standing in front of. The words had been on the very tip of my tongue. And yet, even knowing the truth of that, hearing this girl **say** it made me angry. Who was she to accuse me of running out, of giving up. I didn't give up on things. I didn't surrender. I didn't freak out and act like everything was the end of the world. I wasn't...

"Aisha," I spoke abruptly, the words coming before I even knew what I was going to say. Anything to cut off that particular line of thought. "Stop. I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you."

Lip curling challengingly, Aisha put one hand on the door. "Yeah? And what if I go anyway, huh?"

"I'll drag you back," I informed her flatly. "And yes, I can do it. I'll drag you back here, and I'll keep dragging you back here until we talk this out so we can move the fuck on and get something done. Now get back in here, and sit down in that chair until I'm done talking." I pointed to a spot in the corner. "I'm gonna talk, you're gonna listen, and then we're going to move on with our fucking lives."

She glared at me, and I stared right back at her. It was a contest of wills, as the girl waited for me to break eye contact so she could dismiss me and storm out anyway. I knew exactly what she was doing. I'd **done** it plenty of times before. Fuck, it was really aggravating. Had the people who had been on the other side of this shit from me wanted to smack me as much as I wanted to smack this girl?

Finally, she shoved away from the door and went to the seat that I had indicated. Somehow, she managed to do so while making it _simultaneously_ clear that this was her idea **and** that she wasn't happy about doing it. Which was, again, extremely familiar. Fuck, I was dealing with some kind of mini-me.

I was quiet after Aisha had sat down. The silence went on long enough for Bryce to start saying something, but I shut him up with a sharp gesture. I wasn't looking at either of them, I was just staring at the floor while I tried to think of what I was going to do, how I was going to deal with this.

Raising my gaze, I focused on Aisha. She was staring at me, arms folded again as she half-sat and half-lounged on the chair. Something, that guilt that I knew she felt, flickered in her eyes briefly before it was suppressed. She couldn't let herself show that guilt, because people would use it against her.

"You fucked up," I stated simply, refusing to sugar coat things at this point. I wasn't some cool teacher or amazing, inspirational person. I was just me. I was a fuck-up too. This was the best I could do.

That obviously defensive sneer returned and the girl started to straighten up. Before she could, I used one hand to shove her back down by the shoulder. "Say it," I ordered. "Say the words. You fucked up."

There was nothing for a few seconds. Then, glaring up at me, she slowly spoke. "I fucked up." I was listening for sarcasm, and it was there, though not as much as I would have thought. She felt bad.

"What did you fuck up?" I asked while staring down at her, keeping my voice as even as possible.

For a brief moment, there was a look of disbelief before she answered slowly, the sarcasm rising. "I fucked up saving those people from the Merchant cocksuckers that were kidnapping them.

Nodding once at that, I pushed on. "Right. Now how did you fuck up, exactly?"

Again, she didn't answer at first. The silence dragged on, but none of us were going anywhere anytime soon, and the girl finally muttered something under her breath. I cleared my throat expectantly, and she repeated herself a bit louder. "I ran off to attack that cocksucker instead of listening to you, okay?"

"It's far from okay," I replied sharply in spite of myself. Then I added, "Why did you fuck up?"

That one earned me a strange look. Her mouth opened, then shut as she thought about it for a second. We stared at one another while I prayed inwardly that my pretense at calm maturity would actually fool her. I couldn't let myself react or let her see in any way that I didn't know exactly what I was doing.

This time, when she spoke, the words were much less certain. "I dunno, because I'm impatient? Cuz I wanted to prove I could beat him myself. I didn't know what his powers were, okay? I thought I could take anyone from the Merchants. Come on, everyone knows they're a fucking joke."

"Just because they're morons and losers doesn't mean they're not dangerous," I said firmly, the words snapping reflexively out of my mouth. "Sometimes an idiot that doesn't fucking know any better is more dangerous than a genius who does. Does a brainless asshole driving his truck through a playground kill less kids just because he's a fucking retard? No, and an idiot with a power is dangerous regardless of how successful you think he is. Especially when you _don't know what that power is."_

She was squirming by that point, and I pushed on. "On more. Who did you fuck up?"

"Nobody?" The girl frowned uncertainly at me. "I wanted to fuck him up, but the asshole got away."

"Who," I rephrased after a second of thought, "got fucked because of your actions, Aisha?"

"Oh." She looked down, then back up again, shifting in the chair. "All those people, I guess."

Nodding once, I took the girl by the hand and yanked her up to her feet. "That's right. All those people that are with the Merchants now, they could be safe. They _would_ have been safe, if you had listened."

The anger twisted up in Aisha's expression, warring against her obvious guilt. I saw it, I'd felt it myself. I knew the look and the feelings, and could almost mouth her retort word for word the instant she spoke it. "Fine, I get it. You want me to fuck off now?"

In spite of myself, I rolled my eyes. "No. I want you to listen. Now, _and_ in the field. Pay attention. We will do better. We will make up for what happened, and next time, we will do this right. But only if you **listen** to me. Look, any other time, in here, when we're doing... I dunno, whatever, then you can fuck around. You can argue, you can tell me to screw myself. But when we're in the field, when there's _people_ that need help, that are depending on us? That's when you listen. That's when you stop fucking around and pay attention. Not for me. Fuck me. For them. For those people that are trapped right now **because** you didn't listen before. Get it? When it really matters, when it counts, that's when you listen."

The words that were coming out of my mouth, I didn't know whose they were, but they didn't feel like mine. This didn't feel like me. I was accustomed to being on the other side of this lecture. This was a... very weird and sort of uncomfortable feeling. Still, I forced myself to stand there and stare at her. "I'm not going anywhere, Aisha, so stop assuming that I'm going to just because I'm pissed off. I can be pissed as fuck without _leaving._ I don't give up that easily. I'm not a quitter, and I don't fucking surrender to anybody. And neither do you. So we are going to do this the right way from now on, which means that you are going to listen to me when I tell you to wait next time. You got it?"

"Yeah, fine." The words were dismissive, but I saw the look on Aisha's face before she suppressed it.

"Say it all together," I instructed. "All of it. And remember it, every time we go out and do this shit."

Silence reigned for a few long seconds, and I was afraid that I'd overplayed my hand. But I wanted this to stick, and I knew how easy it had been for me to blow this sort of thing off after a few seconds. I knew for a fact how easy it was to ignore even something this important. Finally, she blew out a long breath before speaking in a quiet voice. "I fucked up because I didn't listen to you and ran off by myself. I fucked over a bunch of people that we could've helped if I'd listened. And I'm not going to fuck up like that again. Or, you know, I'll try not to. No promises." She shrugged, looking down.

I nodded. Fuck it, good enough. "Great. Now that that's out of the way, let's move on."

" **Thank you** , jeeze." Bryce cut in, clearly exasperated. "Enough with the freaking drama. Can we focus on something important now? Like, oh I dunno, maybe all the people calling in about some kind of disturbance at that new mall they've been building a few blocks from here."

"Disturbance?" I frowned at that. "What kind of disturbance?"

He shrugged at me. "Something about a big snake? You guys can handle that, right?"

* * *

"Fuck you, Bryce!" The crashing sound of a snake head the size of a god damn Buick slamming its way through a handful of half-assembled mall kiosks in its rush to reach me was a roar that drowned out my scream less than twenty minutes later. I kept running with Imp right beside me, that giant fucking snake coming after us faster than anything that size had any right to move. It just plowed through anything in its way.

We had gotten here, breaking into the mall easily enough considering it was still under construction. Imp and I hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary at first, as we crept as quietly as possible down the eerily empty mall corridor. For a few minutes, I'd thought that the construction workers who had abandoned the place had been hitting the drinks too hard. Seriously, a snake had scared them all off?

Then we had come around a corner and seen four people standing in the middle of what would eventually become the food court. One was a short woman who had been wearing a dark green kimono with a jade mask in the shape of a snake's head. Beside her had been another girl who was obviously younger even though I couldn't see either of their faces. I was guessing she was a year or two older than I was. Her costume consisted of something very close to samurai armor, a teal base suit with dark blue armor and padding over it. She wore a black metal mask with blue trim over the bottom half of her face, leaving everything from her eyes up exposed. At her hip, rather than a Japanese sword, was a rapier.

The third person standing there had been male. He was very tall, topping seven feet easily, and thin as a rail. He wore a black tuxedo with a white mask that covered from the top of his face down to his just above his mouth. It looked almost like that Phantom of the Opera mask, only it covered both sides.

Those three standing there had been interesting. But the fourth figure had been the one that made me curse. Because the _fourth_ person standing in that corridor had been Oni Lee.

They had all seen us by that point. Oni Lee hadn't attacked. Instead, he'd said something about a test before his body had crumbled to dust, obviously having teleported away.

After that, the woman in the kimono with the snake mask had taken a step forward before... **changing** into the monster that was still right on my ass. That giant god damn monster had chased us through half the mall.

The problem was, we had run out of places to run. The end of the mall corridor was coming up, and there was nowhere else to go. I spun around to face the snake as it drew closer, staring at the massive fucking thing. It was pretty much too big for this place already, smashing through something new every time it moved. But none of that was slowing the damn thing down either.

"Bryce..." I said in a low voice while taking a final step back to bump up against the wall. "I think you're about to find out if these gloves of yours can electrify a fifty foot long snake. Gotta tell ya, I am not optimistic." That, or he was going to find out that I actually did have powers after all. I wasn't going to risk being eaten by Jormungandr, or letting Imp be eaten, just to keep my secret.

"C'mon, we can take this bitch." Six of Aisha's imps were gathered around her, made of cement, metal, plastic, silver, fire, and glass respectively. The fire imp darted forward and launched itself against the snake. It snapped at the thing, but drew back rather than risk swallowing the flames.

"See?" Beside me, Aisha pointed with one hand, and the rest of her imps went on the attack. "We can—oohhh shit!"

The snake had lost interest in the imps that were harassing it, and lunged forward straight at us. We dove away to either side just as that giant snake head plowed right through the wall with a violent crash. Now Aisha and I were trapped on opposite sides of that giant snake, which was still snapping at and trying to deal with the imps that were jumping all over it.

"You should surrender." The voice was quiet, polite and... actually sounded regretful. I looked up to see the samurai girl standing there with her sword drawn. "Please," she said then. "I really don't want to hurt you. But if I have to, I will."

I caught the barest glimpse of Aisha darting up a nearby stairwell with the tall, thin man hot on her heels before turning my attention back to the girl. "Joining up with Lung's gang, huh? Bad idea if you don't want to hurt people. What do you call yourself anyway?"

That regret was still there as the girl replied, "My name is Foil. And if I had a choice, I would have nothing to do with him. But I don't. So here we are."

"Yup," I replied neutrally. "Here we are. I don't suppose you'll surrender."

"No." She shook her head. "Will you?" When I shook my head in return, she sighed. "Then I'll have to hurt you."

I readied myself, waiting for the girl's approach. "You can try."

Flicking that rapier around a couple of times, Foil watched me for a second. There was calculation in her eyes. She was judging the best way to attack, taking her time to watch what I did.

Then, with almost no warning, she moved. That deceptively thin looking sword lashed out, and I was abruptly thrust into one of the most difficult fights I had ever experienced.

So much for this day going **better.**

 **7-03 – Taylor**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 (Same day as Sophia's fight with Foil)**_

The basketball arced through the air, clearly about to narrowly miss the rim and bounce off the backboard. Before it could, however, the pole that the hoop was attached to twisted itself, bending slightly sideways with a grinding noise so that the ball went cleanly through the hoop.

"Boom, headshot!" Mockshow's loudly triumphant, crowing voice filled the air. I was seeing things through her eyes for the moment, so I had a pretty good view of her flipping off the hoop with both hands. "That's right, bitch. Mockshow tells you to go in the net, you best do as you're told!"

"Oh come on!" Spitfire grabbed the ball from the ground and glared at me. Err, glared at Mockshow, rather. Even now that was weird to get used to. I had to keep changing my mindset about where my vision was originating from. It became especially awkward at times when my vision would change several times in short order, leaving me disoriented about whose eyes I was actually seeing through.

"You got a problem, Flamer?" Mockshow asked, clearly deliberately taunting the other girl. The feelings I sensed through her weren't really hostile, but rather amped up. She clearly took competition seriously, playing to win even if she wasn't really playing all that fair or within the spirit of the game.

It had been a couple days since the big showdown in Vegas, and Faultline had said that we needed to lay low for a bit. To that end, she had brought us to some big, out of the way cabin on the edge of a lake somewhere in Oregon. This so-called 'cabin' was bigger than my family's entire **house** was. Or rather... had been. It was an enormous structure, with enough bedrooms for everyone, even our newest member (and I was still surprised that my tenure as 'newest member' was as short as it had been), as well as a massive kitchen and attached dining room with enough space to feed at least fifteen people, a game room full of several pinball machines, a pool table, and another table that was obviously meant for playing cards at, a small theater room with enough reclining seats for more than a dozen people to watch the giant projection screen, and more. There was even a hot tub on the deck overlooking the lake, and, obviously, a basketball hoop. It was only a half-court thing, rather than a full one, but still. The place was completely ridiculous, and I felt awkward even being there. What had I done to deserve to crash in a place like this? It felt like any second the real owners were going to show up and kick us out.

Emily was spinning the ball in her hands while she continued to scowl at Mockshow. It was clear that she was trying to decide if making a fuss about the other girl using her power for this dumb little game was worth it or not. It was also equally clear that Mockshow had gambled on no one caring enough to object that stringently, though they had gambled the rest of the week's worth of dish duty on the game.

"Hold up," Mockshow turned abruptly, and I saw my own body in her gaze. It was slumped over a nearby picnic table next to Elle. "Yo, Taylor! Wherever your eyes are at right now, I hope you're paying attention. Lemme see P with the left hand and X with the right. You remember those? I'll check in a minute, as soon as these guys give up and accept their complete and total defeat."

Whatever else I could say about the younger girl aside, she was genuinely trying to teach me sign language so that I could communicate a little more easily. There had also been talk of getting me a phone app that would speak out the letters I typed, but I wanted a low-tech version too, just in case.

Hell, even the thought of simply **having** a phone, let alone apps for it, was strange. My dad had made it clear that he didn't want any cell phones in the house, after what had happened to Mom.

I shook off that thought at the feeling of Mockshow's teammate, Newter draping his arm over her shoulders while he addressed Spitfire. "So you girls gonna take the ball out? Or," he added with a teasing tone that somehow managed to make my face feel warm even though he wasn't even **close** to addressing me. "You could just forfeit. Dish duty for the rest of the week shouldn't be _that_ bad."

"No chance." That came from _Emily's_ teammate, the young woman with a curtain of red hair that we had gone to Vegas to rescue. She'd called herself Shamrock before, but during the course of driving up here, she had re-introduced herself as Payton. She'd also given some kind of grim, taunting smile every time she said the name, as if simply saying it aloud was some kind of great victory over someone.

I wasn't sure what was going on between Payton and Faultline, but the two of them had been talking a **lot** in the last couple of days. This was practically the first time they'd been separated, since Payton had stayed behind while Faultline and Gregor went into town to visit the store and stock up on supplies.

Plucking the ball out of Emily's hands, Payton spun it on a finger. "We still get one more shot." She kept the ball spinning on her finger, then let it drop into her palm before giving it a heave toward the ground just in front of Mockshow and Newter. I felt the girl's surprise, and saw her hands grab for the ball as it bounced up, filled with a jolt of triumph that she was about to win. The ball, however, spun sideways, narrowly brushing past her grasping fingers. She spun alongside Newter, staring as the ball flew up, crossed the entire distance to the basket, and then dropped neatly right through the net.

My vision jumped out of Mockshow then, and I was seeing through Emily's view while she laughed so hard she nearly fell over. Mockshow, not nearly as amused, was sputtering about cheating.

"Really?" Payton asked with a raised eyebrow after exchanging a quick high-five with the still giggling Emily. "You sure you wanna play that card?"

Mockshow's head tilted slightly like she was considering it, then she just grinned, like losing didn't really bother her all **that** much. I knew it stung her, because I'd felt her competitiveness. But she took it well enough, simply replying as primly as possible, "I withdraw my objection."

Once again, my vision jumped, and I had an overhead view of the court. In one corner, I had a better view of the table where my body sat, staring off at nothing. Beside me was Elle, who was _also_ staring off at nothing. One of her hands was busy tapping rhythmically at the table for some reason, while her other hand rested on my shoulder protectively. Every once in awhile, I could see her lips move, but she wasn't saying anything. Clearly Elle was in one of her other worlds, paying attention to something else.

I was tempted to focus on that so I could join her, but I had work to do. Specifically, I had to focus on my fingers. Slowly, painstakingly, I focused on putting them into the proper positions for the letters as far as I could remember. It would have been faster with the suit, of course, but I hadn't been using it all day as part of Faultline's instructions. I was supposed to practice moving myself without the suit's help. Even without Mockshow's tests, I would occasionally lift one of my hands, make a fist, or even just turn my head from side to side. It always took at least a minute, but even that was far better than the times that I'd been stuck with before she'd found me in the hospital. I was getting better. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, considering a sixty to ninety second delay in reaction was still an eternity for face to face communication. But it was genuine improvement in my average time.

Eventually, Mockshow crossed over to plop herself on the bench across from where Elle and I sat, grabbing a water bottle that was there to gulp from. After burping loudly, she finally looked at my hands. "Shit yeah, that's what I'm talking about. P and X, good job. See? People think you should learn the easy letters first. Fuck that, once you know the hard ones, the easy ones are cake. So you can learn the letters, then we'll get to words. Pretty soon we won't be able to shut you up without handcuffs."

Over the next forty seconds, I forced my left hand into giving a thumbs up. I could see sweat lining my brow, but it was a **good** kind of sweat. I hadn't done anything that, under almost any other circumstances, would have been considered remotely exerting or noteworthy. I'd just shaped my hands into two sign language letters, and lifted my thumb from my fist. Yet to me, it was everything. It was communication. It was _me,_ actually communicating without the aid of a suit. I'd made the letters P and X because I had chosen to, and pretty soon I was going to be able to make every letter there was. Then I'd move on to words. I would be able to sign _**words**_ and actually talk to the rest of my team.

The amount of anticipation and joy I felt at the very concept of such a thing was probably stupid. But before I could think too much about that, the sound of a car engine announced Faultline and Gregor's return. They were back from the store. Hopefully that meant it was time to see why we were really here, because I had a feeling it wasn't _just_ a vacation.

* * *

"We are not here just for a vacation," Faultline announced fifteen minutes later after gathering everyone into the den. My vision was taking in the entire room once more, so I could see all of the many animal heads that covered the walls. There were also a handful of handsome leather couches, one of which my body was laying on. The place reminded me of the one and only time my parents and I had gone to one of those really expensive restaurants. I couldn't even remember now why we'd gone there. I'd been too little to really understand or appreciate it. But the waiting room before we'd been seated had had nice couches like this one. As I lay there, I barely recalled being on that similar couch as a child. I'd complained of being hungry, and Mom's hand had come down to stroke my hair as she promised that it wouldn't be much longer. I couldn't remember anything about the meal itself, but I remembered Mom's hand and her voice. It was one of those memories that I had clung to, one of the few involving my mother that hadn't been tarnished or ruined in some way, simply because Emma hadn't been involved in any way. It was a pleasant thought, and laying here reminded me of it.

"Pfft, you say that like it's some big surprise," Mockshow replied to Faultline's announcement. "Pretty sure Lucky Girl figured out that this wasn't a real vacation, and she just joined up like six seconds ago."

"It is a real vacation... sort of," Faultline corrected her. "It's just not **only** a vacation. We're up here for a reason, but that reason won't be relevant for a few days. In the meantime, we can train. But when we're not training, you can relax, breathe, and have a little bit of a break for awhile."

"What about the new girl?" Newter asked from where he was sitting, perched on the end of one of the other couches on the opposite side of the room. "Is she actually sticking around then?"

Three voices answered simultaneously and nearly identically. Two answers were yes, while the third was duh. The last answer came from Mockshow, the first yes from Shamrock, and the other from Elle, who sat beside me and laid a hand defensively over my shoulder while answering for me.

"I meant the newest new girl," Newter pointed out slowly. "But thanks for that reminder of how fast our little team is growing. We're so hot right now, I bet Alexandria's thinking of signing up."

Shamrock, sitting the wrong way in a wooden chair with her arms folded over the back of it, spoke up. "Yeah, I'm sticking around." Her eyes glanced away then while she muttered under her breath. "Might as well, since it's not like I've got anywhere else to go in this world."

A bunch of eyes, including my own invisible ones, instantly snapped over to focus completely on the red-haired girl. Newter was the first to speak. "I'm sorry, what was that about this world?" Fingers snapping abruptly, he jumped off the couch while pointing at her. "Wait, you _**are**_ from Aleph, aren't you? I knew it! I knew you didn't know enough about this place."

Before Payton could respond to that, Faultline spoke up, her voice firm and professional, brooking no argument. "Yes, Shamrock is from another world. No, it's not Aleph. Yes, I know that's confusing. No, we aren't talking about it right now. Yes, I know that's not really fair. No, I don't particularly care. Yes, we will eventually discuss it. No, you are not to hound her about it. Does that address all of everyone's immediate questions? There are important things we need to talk about, but not right now. We'll get to them later, I promise. Right now, let's discuss the job and then take a break so you can spend this vacation doing more than just sitting in this room with your mouths hanging open."

She said something else, but I was too busy being in shock. Shamrock was from _another world?_ That wasn't supposed to be possible. Even the connection between Aleph and our world wasn't a physical one. We could send data and information through, stuff like that, but not a **person.** And according to Faultline, she wasn't even from Aleph at all, but some other world altogether? Wow. Just... wow.

Then again... I stopped to consider the fact that Elle had access to dozens of small worlds all on her own. Thinking about it that way made this a little easier to understand and accept, though it was still a pretty huge deal.

"In any case," Faultline pressed on pointedly. "We have a client who has hired us for a real job. One where we actually get paid. So listen up. We'll go over the fine details later, but right now I want to give you the overview. The job is for Accord."

"Uggghhn," Newter groaned, dropping his head. "That guy is such a pain in the ass."

"I'm sure he thinks worse of you," Faultline pointed out. "And that's why I'll be the one dealing with him. None of you are to have any contact with that man. It's too easy for him to pitch a fit about some ridiculous mistake. Just leave it to me."

"Will do, Beaver," Newter replied with a crisp salute.

"Thank you!" Shamrock blurted then, snapping everyone's attention her way once again while she continued. "Thanks for using a reference from far enough back that I actually fucking understood it."

Gregor, seated in the corner behind the girl, chuckled. "It can be very difficult to follow the conversations when they rely so much upon shared experiences and knowledge, I am sure." Payton turned to look over her shoulder at him, smiling openly, and the big guy actually smiled back for a second.

Faultline continued. "The job that Accord has hired us for should be simple enough. One of the local hero groups in a city about fifty miles north is working on building something, a forcefield projector of some kind. Accord wants us to steal it from them and bring it to him. But he wants us to wait until it's finished, and that won't be for a few more days. Hence our vacation. We will, however, be going over the details of each and every member of this other group until all of you know them better than they know themselves. **Then** we'll talk about how we're going to beat them and steal this device."

* * *

An hour later, I was finally wearing my suit, using it to stretch my legs a bit with Elle following alongside me. Together, we walked slowly through this massive cabin while looking around at all the obviously ridiculously expensive furnishings.

I was also busy thinking about the mission that Faultline had described. It sounded like a simple enough. Yet it would also be the first time that I was _genuinely_ and knowingly pitting myself against actual heroes.

I... wasn't sure how I felt about that. Yet after everything that Faultline and Elle had done for me, I felt a lot more loyalty toward them than I did to some concept of the law.

Besides, it wasn't like we were going to seriously hurt any of them or anything. We'd steal the forcefield device and get the hell out of there. That was it.

In the midst of my musings, I wandered past one of the closed doors on the second floor of the cabin. My panoptic vision caught a glimpse of a picture hanging inside the room that caught my attention, and I focused on it.

The painting was of a dark haired, stern looking woman and two little girls that looked to be about eleven or twelve. Both of the children were identical, and I could have sworn that one of them had to have been Faultline years and years ago. But... that didn't make sense. Wasn't this just some random cabin that she had rented for the week so we could hide out in style?

Before I could think too much about that, Elle spoke up. "Taylor?" Her voice was inquisitive, head tilted toward me as she waited to see what was wrong.

"Is something wrong?" That was Faultline, just coming into view of my wide-around vision.

Quickly, I made my head shake. The painting in that room wasn't any of my business, and I certainly wasn't going to ask her about it.

The woman regarded me for a few seconds, then lifted her hand to offer me the computer pad that she was holding. "Here, while you're using the suit, you might as well see if your father sent another e-mail so you can respond to him."

Directing my hands (or rather, the gloves that covered my hands) to accept the pad, I tapped several of the icons in quick succession until the e-mail that Faultline had set up for me came up. Dad _had_ sent me a message, and I opened it before carefully reading through his rather extensive note.

Wow. So a lot of stuff had been going on in Brockton Bay, apparently. Dad had to tell me all about it, while also demanding more details about the car chase in Vegas. I'd already sent him a description of what had happened to him once in reply to about half a dozen increasingly frantic e-mails that had been waiting for me the first time I'd been able to look at them after all that had gone down, but apparently it wasn't enough. He wanted more specifics, a play by play, I guessed.

At the end of the message, Dad ended with a simple question. _Taylor,_ he wrote, _I still don't know if this was the best thing to do. Every hour of every day I wonder if I made a stupid mistake by trusting this Faultline woman. I don't want you to be in danger. I want you to be safe. But most of all, I want you to be happy. So tell me, and be honest, are you happy where you are? Are you happy with that group?_

I didn't have to think about it. There was more that I was going to have to write. It would involve an extensive message. Maybe I'd get one of the others to help me give my dad the involved description of the car chase that he was looking for. But there was one thing I wanted to write immediately, one response to his last question that I needed to get down.

 _Yes, Dad._ I carefully typed out.

 _I'm happy._

 **7-04 – Madison**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 (Same day as Sophia's fight with Foil)**_

"All right, that's it! I've had enough of your fucking bullshit!" Rune's shout filled the room. "I'm gonna rip your god damn spine out and make you fucking eat it, bitch!"

She then proceeded to do just that, leaving me dead on the ground while she paraded around my ruined corpse, waving for the crowd of supporters as they all cheered wildly for her victory.

"Aww, man," I groaned while tossing the controller down on the bed. "I thought I had you that time."

On the television screen in front of us, Rune's character proceeded to stomp down a couple of times on the body of the one that I had been controlling before the game jumped back to the menu for selecting new characters to run through the brutal and pretty damn gory fighting tournament that comprised the totality of what was somehow called the 'story' for this particular game.

"No chance, no way," Rune informed me flatly. "I kicked your ass and you know it. Just wanted to see if you learned anything at all by losing the last eighteen times. You did remember which character you were that time, right? Please tell me you at least remembered which character you were."

I promptly stuck my tongue out at her. "Oh come on, I nearly beat you and you know it. Why else would you have gotten so pissed off back there. You know, rargh fucking bullshit and so on?"

Something that felt like a smirk if I'd been able to see the girl's mouth crossed her face before she rolled her eyes. "Well, I did, didn't I? Just thought if I told you ahead of time, you might be able to block it."

Tilting my head curiously at that, I replied dryly. "I was unaware that I could block being fed my own spine after it's ripped out." Picking up the controller once more, I peered at it. "Which button is that?"

"Oh, you wanna know what button it is?" Rune grabbed the controller from my hand. "Right here. You probably missed it because it's the only button that doesn't make you surrender like a little bitch."

"Oh, is **that** what that button does?" I shot back. "See, you were hammering at it so much that I figured it was the 'whine because the girl that only picked up the game yesterday almost beat you' button."

Lifting her hand to point back at me, Rune started to speak before stopping as a noise like a snort escaped her. She coughed again, clearly hiding a snicker before sighing. "God damn it."

"And that would be a point for me?" I offered cheerfully while holding up a finger demonstratively.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. You'll break first next time" the other girl shot back. "Don't forget, I'm still winning. In that game," she nodded toward the screen. "And this one. I've made you crack up six times, you've only hit me five. So screw you." Her finger flicked against the visor that covered the top of my face. "I'm still kicking your ass."

"Pffft," I huffed and shook my head. "I'm telling you, that second time was a sneeze, not a laugh."

Rolling her eyes at that, Rune replied derisively. "Uh huh, sure. And they say villains cheat. You laughed and you know it." She turned the controller around and shoved it at me. "So suck it up, Kirby."

"Kirby?" I echoed, blinking at the name while I took the controller and proceeded to choose a new character entirely at random. It wasn't like I really had much of a chance either way.

"Sure, Kirby." Rune shrugged. "You know, cuz you suck up everything that gets in your way."

For a moment, I wondered how the girl would react if she knew how many other ways that name was appropriate. I did, after all, gain new skills after the aforementioned 'sucking', though I was **never** going to call it that. Still, it was disturbingly accurate, considering how little she knew about it.

This was probably the worst part about my captivity over the last couple of days. I'd expected awful conditions and horrible, racist, evil monsters that continually spouted awful, genocidal bullshit. Instead, I'd spent most of my days either with two girls that didn't seem at all like monsters on the surface. First there was Othala, the quiet, older girl who spent most of the time talking about old cartoons with me. We had actually chatted for about forty minutes early that day about Bugs freaking Bunny.

And when I wasn't being watched by Othala, it was Rune. My interactions with _her_ mostly went like this one had. We had our little 'try to make the other person crack up' game that had just sort of naturally evolved out of our normal interaction, and it was... good. Fuck, it was fun. That was why this was the worst part. I kind of... _liked_ both of them. In another life, in another situation, I would have liked to have been friends with Rune. She was funny, quick-witted, and almost disturbingly intelligent.

And yet, even then, those moments of racism would creep into the middle of otherwise normal conversations. We'd be talking something like Star Wars, and then Othala would say something like, "Good thing they didn't let the nigger that voiced Vader be under the mask when Luke took it off. Can you imagine that? Big dramatic moment, mask comes off, and it's a monkey under there?"

That was the thing though, I didn't get the sense that she said it to shock or offend me. She didn't even consider the fact that I would **be** offended. That idea absolutely never occurred to her. She was so accustomed to this kind of talk, so desensitized to it, that it was... it was _normal_ to her.

Rune was similar, though with her it seemed even more random. She would be talking, and then these racist terms would just slip into her speech. A couple of times, I'd seen the girl stop after using one of those awful words. She'd just go silent like she was thinking about something, then move on without addressing it. The words, those horrible, racist terms just blurted out of her mouth sometimes in the middle of what would otherwise have been a pretty cool conversation. It was like talking to someone who would, occasionally and without warning, throw up in the middle of a sentence. Disgusting, and had a tendency to overshadow every other part of the interaction either waiting for it to come up, or awkwardly trying to ignore it afterward. The stench of the casual racism ruined everything else. "Fine, guess I'm Kirby," I finally replied with a shrug. "But I get to name you then."

Rune raised an eyebrow at that. "Right, and what name would you choose if I let _that_ happen?"

Rolling my head from side to side, I gave a few humming noises while making a big show about thinking it through. "Hmm, okay, I know. The very best nickname for you is... Princess Glittertwinkle."

"I will **fucking** murder you," Rune vowed, pointing a finger at my chest. "Kaiser's plan can go to hell. You say that name out loud again and what I did to your character back there will seem like a picnic."

Grinning at that, I adopted an imperious tone. "Why, your subjects await your ruling, Princess Glitaaaack!" My words were interrupted as the other girl literally tackled me off of the bed. We hit the floor hard, and I rolled over to put myself on top of Rune for about half a second before she managed to kick out and force us to flip the other way. For a minute, we struggled that way, wrestling on the floor while she demanded that I promise to never, ever use that name again, and I kept repeating it over and over again every time she wasn't busy trying to choke me so that I couldn't.

With no warning, a strong hand abruptly grabbed my shoulder, while an unfamiliar voice hissed, "Stupid little bitch." I was shoved hard against the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of me. Immediately, more hands grabbed my arms and held me there. My vision cleared a moment later and I found myself staring at the costumed form of Crusader. Two of his ghosts was holding my arms to pin me in place against the wall, while the man himself jabbed a finger into my chest. "You just made a really stupid mistake, you ignorant little cunt. Maybe if we take off one of your hands, you'll learn a-"

"Get _**away**_ from her!" The shout came from Rune, and I caught a glimpse of the girl brushing her hand over Crusader's armor before she made a thrusting gesture with it. The man was sent tumbling backwards to hit the opposite wall with a loud clang. Then she spun to face him, putting her back to me. "We were just fucking around, you stupid piece of shit! She wasn't attacking me! Call off the ghosts and let her go, you dumb son of a bitch, or I swear to god, I will make that god damn armor so tight it'll squeeze you out of the end like a tube of fucking toothpaste!"

The ghosts vanished a moment later, letting me stumble off the wall. As soon as they were gone, Rune released her hold over Crusader's armor, and he slumped forward as well. "Fuck, girl," he spat the words. "I was trying to help you out. Thought she jumped you or something. You don't have to get all crazy. Or did you forget that _**she's**_ the enemy and _**we**_ are on the same fucking team?"

For a second, Rune didn't say anything at all. In fact, I could have sworn she _flinched_ a little bit, though it might have been my imagination. Either way, she eventually shook her head. "Yeah, and how long do you think Kaiser's gonna let you stay on the team if you end up killing our leverage, dumbass?"

"Like I said," he shot back. "I thought she was attacking you. Excuse me for giving a shit."

"What the hell do you want, anyway?" Rune demanded while folding her arms over her chest.

"Kaiser needs you to run an errand," the man replied. "I'm here to keep an eye on the **prisoner**."

That time, Rune definitely flinched. Her eyes darted to me and then to him again. "Where's Othala?"

"She's busy," he answered bluntly. "Since, you know, she has a life. Kaiser said she should be down here in about an hour. Why, you don't think I'm qualified to play babysitter for a few minutes?"

"I don't think you're qualified to do a lot of things," Rune shot back at him. "Including but not limited to electrical repair, electrical consumption, driving, operating heavy machinery, operating non-heavy machinery, management of a library card, cereal preparation and/or consumption, doorknob administration, or oxygen intake specialist. Babysitting is just right out the window. Which, if we're being honest, is probably where said baby would go if anyone was stupid enough to trust you with it."

A strangled snort escaped me by the end of that, and she pointed a hand at me before announcing. "And that's seven, bitch." Spinning on her heel, she strode to the door while advising, "Try taking a shower. Maybe by the time you're done, the company waiting for you will be a little less incompetent."

* * *

A heavy fist slammed against the bathroom door three times in rapid succession. "That's enough!" The annoyed voice of my current jailer called. "Out!"

I sighed in response, but didn't open my eyes. Standing there beneath the roaring shower, I was _almost_ able to pretend that I was back home in the bathroom that I shared with my brother. Hell, even the angry voice demanding I hurry up was kind of familiar, come to think of it.

Reaching out, I turned off the shower so that Crusader would know that I wasn't ignoring him.

To be fair, I had taken Rune's advice, which meant that I had been in the shower for almost an hour by that point, according to the clock that sat above the bathroom mirror. I figured the man wouldn't really care, considering he knew I wasn't going anywhere as long as they had Laserdream, and while I was in the shower, he didn't have to try to have a conversation with me. Somehow, I doubted he was the type of guy that wanted to play video games. Nor would doing so have been as fun as Rune made them.

Looking down at the full tub that I was standing in thanks to the plug that I'd stuck in the drain, I focused on my power. The field around my skin came to life, sucking the water up into it, which disappearing quickly over those few seconds.

I repeated that a couple of times until all the water in the tub was gone before stepping out to the cold tile floor. Rather than touching the provided towel, I used my power one more time, drawing the field right up against my skin so that the water there was absorbed as well, leaving me dry.

I had been absorbing the water with every shower I'd taken in this place. It wasn't much, but I wanted as much water as I could manage to safely and secretly absorb when the opportunity to escape _with_ Crystal presented itself. I may have been enjoying the time with Othala and Rune more than I would have thought, but the fact that I was a prisoner hadn't escaped me. Given the chance, I needed to get to Laserdream so that both of us could get the hell out of here. Which meant preparing every advantage I could get, even if that advantage was as simple as an hour's worth of shower water here and there.

After dressing quickly in my costume once again (which had started to smell before Othala had it washed the night before while I had taken another shower) and setting the visor back in place, I moved to the bathroom door. Sliding the chair away from where I had jammed it up against the knob before unlocking it (not that I expected the lock or the chair to stop Crusader if he was determined, but they made me feel better) and stepping out. "See? Still here, still a prisoner. Not Steve McQueening my way to freedom."

"Right, the Great Escape, Nazi's, hah. You're a real funny girl." Crusader sneered humorlessly. "Now shut up and sit down. I hear another word out of you and I'll pretend I didn't hear Kaiser say we couldn't gag you."

Before I could move, however, the door opened and Othala stood there in her red bodysuit and simple mask with the dark lenses covering her eyes.

"You can go now," she said to Crusader.

"You sure?" He asked casually. "I mean, you've been on guard duty a lot. You could take a break for a few hours. Isn't Victor fighting in the ring tonight?"

She gave a short nod. "It's fine, Kaiser set up the security feed so we can watch it in here. Go ahead, I know you'd rather be down there."

After another moment of hesitation, the man pointed at me. "You behave, and stop being such a smartass. It's gonna get you hurt." Heaving himself to his feet, he strode to the door and out, shutting it behind him.

"Are you okay?" Othala asked, rather bizarrely.

In response, I just stared at her for a moment before shaking my head. "Thanks for asking, but no. On the list of things that I am, 'okay' is pretty far down the list. Still kidnapped, still being held against my will, still being treated as a hostage to force my **friend** to do something for a bunch of Nazi supervillains. So no, I'm not really okay. But no, he didn't hurt me, if that's what you meant. And for the record, the fact that you feel nervous enough to ask that says _loads_ about this whole situation."

The older girl flinched noticeably before reaching down to pick up the remote. Without speaking, she changed the channel a couple of times before settling on the security footage that she'd mentioned to Crusader.

The image on the screen was that of some kind of make-shift fighting tournament cage, coincidentally not too unlike the arena that the virtual characters Rune and I had been using had fought in. I could see a bunch of people, mostly men, gathered around the outside of the chainlink fence that encircled the cage, while a couple of masked guys stood facing each other in the middle.

"Victor won't fight until later," Othala informed me. "He fights the real warriors, the ones who prove themselves by getting past the riffraff."

"What is this?" I asked after a second.

"Initiation," she replied without looking away from the screen. "The new recruits for the Empire fight it out to determine their skill and thus their pecking order, then the best of them get a chance to fight someone like Victor or Stormtiger. They always lose, but the honor is in being allowed to try."

I had my doubts about that system, but the masked men in the cage were fighting already. One was a heavy-set man who had a solid foot over his smaller opponent. Both of them went after each other viciously, without much skill but with a ton of enthusiasm.

"Lots more anger in that one," Othala announced quietly, gesturing to the smaller figure.

"You sure?" I asked. "Cuz they both look pretty pissed to me. How is that stuff fun?"

She looked over at me, pausing. "It's... primal. Winning in a match like that is... it's a feeling that they will never forget. And yes, they're both angry, but that one is... even more. Trust me, after awhile, it's easy to tell where the most rage is coming from."

Together, the two of us watched the fight on the screen in silence for a few minutes. The men fought each other with vicious strikes, not seeming to pull anything at all. Finally, the smaller one managed to land a blow that put the bigger guy on the floor, and Victor, who was apparently refereeing the match, stepped in quickly to separate them. The bigger guy was pulled away, while Victor caught hold of the other one's wrist and hoisted it up above his head. After yelling something about champions, Victor slapped a hand against the left shoulder of the winner, near a scar that looked sort of like a lopsided turtle.

Whatever Victor had said, the crowd roared in approval, and the victorious Empire recruit held his arms high over his head, bloody fists clenched as he turned in a circle, basking in the applause.

But I wasn't paying attention to that. My gaze had locked onto that small part of the screen where Victor had smacked the other man on the back. The image had moved on, but my eyes hadn't moved from that single spot, that centimeter of screen where that scar had been. The horror of my realization muted any response I could have made. Logical thought had vanished from my mind.

A lopsided turtle scar. I knew it. I'd recognized it the very instant that it had appeared on the screen. I knew it almost as well as I knew the back of my hand. Hell, I was _**responsible**_ for that scar, considering we'd been fighting when I had thrown the thing that gave it to him, so many years ago.

Trevor. My brother. That was his scar. That was him. It was him. He was there.

No... oh god... please... no.

 **7-05 – Sophia**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011**_

The narrow blade of that sword came within an inch of my arm before I managed to jerk it out of the way while backpedaling a step. Christ, this girl was fast. She had gone from simply standing there, watching me with those calculating eyes to lashing out almost faster than I could react. A nanosecond slower reaction on my part and the fight might have been over literally as soon as it began.

Foil followed up the initial thrust with a quick jerk of the blade that brought it up and forward. I let the blade come, stepping forward as though moving into it, but turning my body sideways so that it could slide through the open space where I had been. One hand caught her extended wrist while my other hand caught her elbow, and I held them both to keep her stretched off balance while bringing my knee up toward her stomach. At the same time, my other foot was placed behind her ankle so that the blow from my knee would knock her backwards to trip over the other foot and hit the ground.

That was the idea anyway. Instead, Foil turned her hip into the blow, bringing her leg up to take my knee there instead of into her stomach. With her arm still held in both of my hands, she kicked out with her raised leg. It was my turn to recoil, blocking the kick with one arm. That left only one hand to hold onto her sword-arm, and she took instant advantage catching hold of **my** elbow, twisting slightly to make my grip on her wrist weaken, and then drove the elbow of her sword-arm back into my face.

Staggering backward from the blow, I grimaced. "You know, you're kind of perpetuating a stereotype here. Could you suck at fighting a little more? For the advancement of racial equity and all that shit."

Apparently not, because Foil came forward three quick steps before spinning into a full round house kick. I saw it coming and tried to twist away from blow, but it still took me across the face and sent me to the floor. I hit hard, rolling away to avoid her follow-up as she brought the blade down where my leg had just been. Throwing myself from a backwards roll, I cursed inwardly at myself. I should've just fucking glove-shocked the girl while I had the chance. Now I had to get my hands on her again.

My roll brought me to a pile of discarded construction supplies. I groped with one hand, closing it around a metal tube of some kind that was about an inch across and as long as my arm before heaving myself into a kip-up that brought me back to my feet with that bit of metal held out to protect myself from the actual sword that she was wielding. Yeah, this was really going to go well, I just knew it.

Without any more warning than there had been before, the girl stepped into a lunge, giving a quick thrust with that sword that seemed more a testing blow than anything. She was still feeling me out, and I had enough time to bring the metal pipe up to block the sword easily, smacking the blade aside.

Or I would have, except that as the pipe hit the sword, the blade cut right through it. The pipe that I had been holding was sheared in half just from hitting that sword as casually as Foil was obviously using it.

For a half-second, I just stared at the remainder of the pipe in my hand. _Well_ _ **shit then.**_ And as if to make matters worse, the giant snake body to my left was starting to pull back out of the hole she had put herself through. So I was about to have even more company for this little brawl. Terrific.

"Hey!" I shouted to get Foil's attention. Not that I needed to, she stopped in mid-step, watching me warily. "What do you say we take this fight somewhere more private?" Before she could respond, I hurled what remained of the pipe at her before turning to sprint the other way, toward the nearby stairs that Imp and the man had gone up. Rather than actually use them, however, I used Bryce's boots to run straight up the wall, vaulting the railing to reach the second floor. "Bryce, how's Imp doing?" I asked while I had the chance. A quick glance back showed Foil coming up the stairs at a sprint.

"She's okay," he reported hurriedly. "I don't know what this guy does, but her imps seem immune to it. He's not happy though. I think he's calling for help. You need to get over there as soon as you can."

"Just tell me if she gets into too much trouble," I told him. Just as Foil reached the top of the stairs, I sprinted straight toward one of the half-finished stores nearby. I went right through the open doorway and found myself surrounded by naked mannequins and empty metal clothing racks, the circular kind that turned so you could examine all the different shirts that were supposed to be hung up on them without moving. At the back of the room was an open door that led into some kind of back room.

Once the store was full and open, they'd probably stock the kind of clothes that Emma and Madison would have gone gaga over. Instead, now it just felt creepy. The only lights came from the outside, casting shadows throughout the room. Not that it was a problem considering the night-vision that Bryce had built into the mask, and I kind of hoped that Foil didn't have the same kind of advantage.

She came into the store right after me, and I spun to kick the nearest clothing rack at her. It went crashing that way, and the girl hopped up and over it easily, coming straight for me before a second metal stand hurled that way made her drop beneath it, breaking up her charge.

I went in fast then, grabbed for the girl's arm again. This time I'd just use the shock-gloves like I should have to begin with. Unfortunately, she was still too quick. That blade went up, and I had to jerk away. But I turned my dodge into an attack, using the momentum and adrenaline to twist into a kick at the girl's side that she was forced to pull away from. She literally hopped backwards through one of the clothing racks just before my leg smacked into the metal bars with a clang. Then she shoved it forward, knocking me off balance. I nearly fell before catching myself an instant before the other girl thrust her sword through the open area of the rack itself, straight for my leg. The only thing I could do was grab the rack with one hand and give it a hard yank over and down. It collapsed, catching the girl's arm and dragging her down into my range as I lashed out to grab onto her while triggering the gloves.

An instant sooner, _half_ an instant, and this fight could have been over. Somehow, the girl managed to yank her head a fraction of an inch away, and my grasping fingers closed over the clothing rack instead. The gauntlet shocked it, but both of us had managed to pull our way free of the thing by that point.

Still, electricity jumped visibly through the thing with a staccato burst, and I saw Foil flinch noticeably. Right, so she wasn't immune to electricity. Good to know. If I could get hold of her, I could end this fight. Unfortunately, if she got off a good hit with that sword that could cut straight through that metal pipe like it wasn't there, the fight would be over as well. And now she knew not to let me touch her.

For a second, we both crouched there, staring at each other through the dim light. For once, I was the first to react. Dropping backwards, I kicked out at the fallen metal rack, knocking it into the girl before catching hold of a second rack with my hand. Yanking it off balance, I gave the thing a hard shove, knocking it over. With a terrible clang, the second rack went crashing to the floor to slide into the first one. Foil was already moving, taking a step forward and coming down on the rack to vault herself over it and at me when she saw my hand grab the one that I had just tipped over. Her eyes seemed to take in the metal rack touching the one her foot had come down on as she started her leap. She tried to throw herself off of it, but wasn't _quite_ fast enough. Some of the electricity channeled through both racks caught the girl and sent her to the floor with a cry, the sword dropping from her hand.

I came straight at her then, fast and hard before realizing my mistake. She hadn't just 'dropped' the sword to the ground. Instead, she had been tossing it from one hand to the other even as the electricity coursed through her. With her muscles spasming, she still managed to give a quick swipe with that blade at my incoming form. I'd seen what that blade could do, whatever it was, and had no desire to experience it myself. Thankfully, the room was dark enough that neither she (distracted as she had to be from that electricity) or Bryce should notice a very quick jump into shadow-form.

It should have been fine. The blade should have passed harmlessly through my slightly indistinct shape. _**Instead**_ , I felt a shock of pain in the arm, as if the blade was cutting through actual skin and muscle as it passed through my shadow-form. The pain shocked me, and I cried out before hitting the ground.

"Hinder!" I heard Bryce's voice. "Are you all right? What happened? The view went all fuzzy for a second, like arm wasn't really there or... or something. Are you okay?"

I didn't answer at first, concentrating on the agony in my arm. That had hurt like a son of a bitch. I was on the floor, clutching my arm. My only solace was that Foil was down as well, twitching a little while she fought to get her muscles under control. But I was bleeding from the arm where that sword had cut right through the padding that Bryce had put into the coveralls. Even the relatively tiny graze that she'd managed to hit me with had gone through my defenses like paper, and now my arm felt a bit numb. It was harder to move than it should have been. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Her sword could cut through a metal pipe **and** my shadow-form like I wasn't even using it? God damn it, shit, shit.

I needed to end this, before she got off another hit like that, or an even worse one. If she did, I'd be fucking done. With that in mind, I lunged for the girl while she was still on one knee, recovering.

At least, I thought she was recovering. The instant I moved, however, Foil was turning toward me. That blade of hers lashed out, slicing neatly through the glove. I felt a little bit of pain, but not much.

The _glove_ on the other hand, sparked once before going dead. She had aimed not to hurt me, but to disable one of the weapons that had hurt _her,_ and she'd done it by luring me in. Fuck.

Left with only one usable glove, I set myself in front of the girl. "You know," I remarked, "for someone who doesn't want to fight, you're sure pretty good at it." Inwardly, I was raging. Not **that** good. She'd gotten lucky, her power was unfair, I hadn't been expecting this kind of fight, and on and on.

But no. This girl _was_ good, and I had to acknowledge that if I was going to beat her. Or at least not lose. Maybe I couldn't win right now, but I could _avoid losing._ Part of me rebelled at that idea, wanting to throw myself blindly into this fight until I could smash this girl's face in to prove I was better.

I forced that part of myself down, watching the girl for another second while she eyed me as well. Her voice was quiet. "You never told me your name. Or the other girl's."

"Normandy. We're Normandy. And I'm called Hinder," I replied simply. "Let me show you why." With that, I gave a quick feint with my foot, then lunged with the still-working glove. Foil completely ignored the fake kick, blade focused on giving a quick slice toward the glove. Her timing and aim was perfect, slicing straight through the components of the weapon to send a couple sparks into the air as the electrical part of the glove died.

That might have pissed me off... if I hadn't been counting on it. I felt the pain of the sword barely glance across my hand as she disabled the glove, and was already moving. Lunging forward while the other girl was focused on that, I threw myself into a full front kick. My foot planted itself in Foil's chest, knocking her back two steps. Before she could recover, I twisted around into a follow up leaping spin-kick. **That** blow knocked her backwards, dropping the sword in the process as she fell through the doorway into the back room, tumbling head over heels. I had the satisfaction of hearing her yelp.

Before she could recover, I grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Then I grabbed the nearest clothing rack, wincing from the pain in my hand as I did so before shoving it up under the doorknob. Bracing the rack against the floor, I got it there just in time. A second later there was a bang as the girl hit the door from the other side. She hit it again a second later, but I was already moving. Reaching down, I grabbed her sword and ran out of the store while tucking it into my belt. "Bryce," I started. "Where's Imp-"

In mid-sentence, I nearly ran right into the girl in question. Imp was racing straight to where I had been, accompanied by three of her helpers. We almost collided before managing to stop right there on the upper walkway. "Are you all right?" I found myself asking the girl.

"Dude, I'm fine," she replied. "Whatever that jackass was trying to do, he couldn't affect my little buddies. They're still clobbering him, but Churching said you needed help."

I blinked at that, confused for a moment. "Churching?"

"You know," she gestured vaguely. "The British guy. Normandy? He is sort of the voice behind the radio and all?"

"... Churchill," I realized a second later. "You mean Churchill."

"Eh, whatever." Imp shrugged. "Churchill then. Better than Bryce. What happened to you?" She gestured to the blood over my hands and arm.

"Long story," I replied. "Actually, short story. Foil's a dangerous bitch. Now let's get out of here before that-"

Of course, _**that**_ was the cue for the giant fucking snake had to slam its way up through the floor between us. I heard Imp cry out in surprise as we were both thrown in opposite directions before landing hard.

I lay there on my back, staring up as that massive snake twisted around, focused on Imp. Fuck, no. If it came after me, I could shift forms, but I couldn't get to Imp in time to get her out of the way! I tried to heave myself up, grabbing for the sword that I'd stolen from Foil in a desperate attempt to get the damn thing's attention. The fear that rose in me at the sudden certainty that I would be too late might have startled me if it hadn't been too all-consuming to let me consider its oddity.

Ignorant or heedless of my thoughts, the snake kept its focus on Imp, who was just rolling over. Its tongue flicked out a couple of times, and then it opened its mouth, starting its lunge while I shouted a warning to the other girl, my body seeming to move like we were underwater.

Then... a voice began to sing. The snake stopped in mid-lunge, freezing before its head cocked toward the sound of the singing. Granted, it was a really beautiful voice, but still.

I twisted a bit to look as well, and found an older girl standing there. Her dark hair was cut short, and she wore pretty grungy clothing. The jeans were heavily ripped and torn, while the shirt, advertising some underground band from Chicago of all places, was patched in a couple places. She wore a brown leather jacket over it that had clearly seen better days as well, and her boots had what looked like dried blood on them. She was also holding a pistol, keeping it aimed at the giant snake while she sang loudly and clearly. The snake, for her part, was completely entranced.

After singing for a few more seconds, the girl ordered in a loud voice. "Go to sleep!"

Instantly, the snake head dropped back through the hole it had created, and I heard the dull thud of the body collapsing below. At the same time, I could also feel _myself_ starting to nod off a bit. It wasn't as immediate as the snake, but the tiredness was definitely there. My muscles relaxed, and I began to slump just before a hard smack across the face woke me up.

"Not you," the girl said flatly before nodding toward Imp. She was also clearly fighting the urge to drift off, though her little helpers were helping to keep her awake by poking and prodding at her.

"Damn it," she muttered. "Still working on only affecting certain people. Both of you stay awake."

Taking a moment to grab Imp and haul the girl to her feet, I stared at the new girl. "Who the hell are you?"

In reply, the girl pointed the gun toward the nearby floor to ceiling window and pulled the trigger. The bullet shattered the glass. "Muse," she answered simply as the sound of the gunshot faded. "Now there's two more capes coming up from the west entrance and another one coming in from the east. Plus the girl you locked in the closet is out, and the one that her... things were attacking got free. And that teleporting guy is around here somewhere, mostly watching. Think he's testing them."

I stared, counting in my head. "That's... more capes than Lung should have. Fuck, _**this**_ was more than he should have. How many did he fucking recruit?!"

"No idea," the girl replied. "But they're coming. So either come with me, or stay and play with those guys some more." With that, she turned and ran to the opening she had made, leaping out to land on top of the tall construction vehicle parked there.

Imp and I exchanged glances. Then we turned and ran after the girl, jumping through the opening together to escape the mall. Each movement aggravated the pain in my hands and arm, but I had a feeling that pain would get a hell of a lot worse if we didn't move it.

I had no idea who this Muse was, but given the choice between going with her and staying in the place with the giant fucking snake and the girl who could hurt me even when I actually used my ability, I'd take my chances with the singer.

But seriously, what the _**fuck**_ kind of cheating, broken-ass power let her hurt me in shadow-form?

Unfortunately, there were two even more important questions than that. Yesterday the ABB was down to Lung and Oni Lee. Now, according to this girl, he suddenly added not just the three new capes that we'd seen, but three _more_ on top of that? So the first question was, what kind of move was Lung gathering all these new capes for?

And second, how much of the city would be left standing after he made it?

 **7-06 – Emma**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011**_

"Tyrone just turned the corner on Fifteenth and Elwood. He should be coming your way, Redshift." Tattletale's voice alerted me through the earbuds that she'd provided that same afternoon. Apparently she had paid Leet to keep them after we'd rescued Uber, Bitch, and Regent. I wasn't entirely sure of how I felt about that, but she had sworn up and down that we were using a different channel than those guys did, so there shouldn't be a problem. I still had my doubts, but they worked for now.

Besides, Alec and his sister may have some weird and complicated relationship that I didn't understand, but after what she'd gone through to help get him out of prison I doubted she'd betray him so easily.

As casually as possible, I set down the cup of coffee that I had been enjoying while spending the past twenty minutes sitting in a local restaurant's outdoor patio. My eyes took in the view across the street, panning over various pedestrians until they singled out a single guy moving rather hurriedly. He was a fairly short, dark-skinned man, barely an inch or two taller than I was. His head was shaved, and he had a red lion tattoo down one arm. I couldn't make out the tattoo from there, but Tattletale had described it.

"Got him," I replied. Lisa had been following this guy for the last couple of blocks, since the moment he had finally emerged from his apartment. We hadn't known which way he would go, so I had set up at this cafe while Nimue had been window shopping in the opposite direction. Now, she and Regent were working their way back around to the nearest of four ambush sites we had picked out. I'd wanted to have at least six locations where we could jump the guy in case he went a different direction or there happened to be people in the way at one of the others, but only four had looked right.

Thankfully, while Tyrone's path wasn't taking him anywhere near the site that would have been my first choice to jump him, the secondary location he _was_ heading in the direction of wasn't that bad either. Assuming he didn't make any last minute turns (and we were pretty sure we know the park that was his general destination, so he shouldn't), the place we had scouted out ahead of time should work just fine. Bitch was already there to make sure the area was clear of any witnesses or interruptions, and was using the extra time to play with her dogs. I'd planned it out that way, figuring the best way of working with Rachel was to leave her on her own as much as possible, in situations where she didn't have to do anything except wait around with her beloved animals. That way she didn't have to deal with people.

Rising from my seat, I dropped a ten dollar bill on the table to cover my coffee and the tip before starting to head out. I'd barely taken a step before my regular phone buzzed in my pocket. Out of habit more than anything, I took the phone to glance at the screen. Dad. He was calling for the fourth time that day. I'd answered once and given him some vague story about being busy with some friends and that I wouldn't be home for dinner before hanging up. Since then he'd called twice more. Three now.

Sighing, I hit the button to decline the call and shoved the phone back into my pocket. I didn't need to deal with any of that shit right now. Finding Madison and her family was more important.

"Well, at least I know you've been _getting_ my calls now," a familiar voice spoke firmly in a tone that had, for most of my life, made me regret what I'd been doing when he used it. It was the voice that spoke of groundings, of no nights sleeping over with Taylor, of hours spent doing chores.

Cursing silently, I lifted my head and stared at the man blocking my way off the patio. "Hi, Dad."

"Emma, what are you _**doing**_?" He demanded before looking me up and down. "And what in the world do you think you're wearing? Are those shorts even your size, or did you get them out of the children's department?" His eyes were staring at me like he had no idea who I was. He was also dipping into his 'lawyer voice', the kind he used while conducting hostile interviews.

"Right now?" I replied. "I'm going out to meet some friends. Maybe we'll see a movie or something."

"Oh no you're not." Dad shook his head. "You're coming home, Emma. Look, your school called. They said you weren't in class at all today or the day before. They said you haven't turned in a homework assignment in the past two weeks. Emma, they said you're in danger of failing this whole semester!"

I stared at him, mouth opening and shutting. Damn it, damn it, I didn't need this right now! I was busy, I was trying to help Madison and her family. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone? Now he cared about how I was acting? **Now** he paid attention to what I was doing in school? Now?

Another thought struck me then. "How did you find me?" I asked before pulling the cell back out of my pocket. "Did you fucking track my phone?" I demanded, holding it tightly while staring at him.

"How else am I supposed to find out where my own daughter is?" He demanded, arms spread wide. "Emma, that's enough. Let's go. We're going home and you are going to draft a letter to every single one of your teachers, explaining why you need a little time to make up all of the work you've missed."

"No," I replied sharply while squeezing the phone even more tightly. "I told you, I'm busy."

"I'm sorry?" Dad's voice was full of disbelief. "I didn't say this was a negotiation. You're not spending time with your friends. We are going home and you are going to work on not _**failing high school.**_ "

For a second, I just stared at him. Then I pivoted on one foot and hurled the cell phone as hard as I could at the nearest wall. It broke apart with a loud crack, the pieces falling into the bushes.

Then I vaulted the nearby railing while my father grabbed for my arm and missed. He was shouting my name as I sprinted away from the cafe, his voice loud with a mixture of shock and anger, with just a little bit of desperation mixed in. I heard his footsteps behind me for about half a block while he shouted my name twice more, but I didn't look back. I just ran, dodging around a few people who stopped to look. Eventually, I turned a corner and found my way to an alley. As soon as I was out of sight of the street, I jumped into my time-stop. The second the world went red around me, I ran through the nearby building and back onto the street before sprinting to catch up with our target. Damn it, damn it, damn it, Dad. Why _**now?**_ Why did you have to interrupt right then? The anger, confusion, and other emotions swirled within me while I ran for almost the entire length of time that I could hold my breath. Finally, just as I was starting to strain, I spotted Tyrone. He was still across the street, about half a block ahead of me. After seeing him, I quickly ran through the wall of a nearby building and found myself in the backroom of some kind of restaurant. There were boxes of hamburger and hot dog buns stacked up. After glancing around quickly to make sure no one was in sight, I released the time-freeze, took in a couple deep breaths, then used my comm. "I'm back on Tyrone."

"Oh does he ever wish that was true," Nimue replied. Her voice was as teasing as ever, giving no indication that she had even heard any of what had gone on between my father and me, though I knew she had. They had _all_ heard it, since I didn't mute the earpiece. I'd been too surprised, and then emotional. They had all heard that entire altercation, even if none of them were saying anything.

Flushing slightly, I pressed on. "He's getting close. Nimue, Regent, are you guys in place yet?"

"Oh, we're so ready we can taste it." Nimue's voice was a purr in my earpiece. "How much longer?"

"We'll pass you in three minutes," I replied, taking another deep breath before jumping into my time-freeze once again. Plunging back out through the wall, I jogged across the street and passed the frozen form of Tyrone. At the nearest corner, I ducked around it and squeezed myself into the semi-hidden alcove of an apartment complex that we had, again, scouted out ahead of time. One more check to make sure no one was watching, and I unfroze time. Then I simply strolled down to the sidewalk and turned the corner to put myself directly in front of Tyrone's path.

"Man," Once again, Nimue spoke, her voice full of longing. "I wish I had Tyrone's job right now."

"Tyrone's job?" Tattletale echoed. "His job in this whole operation is to get captured."

"Correction," the other girl replied, "his job is to be distracted and _then_ get captured. Totally worth it."

I was, naturally, the distraction that Tyler was referring to. The very same clothes that Dad had objected to were the ones that were going to help us make sure that Tyrone never saw our attack coming. The shorts were tight enough that it had been a bit of a pain to get into them.

Now, I walked ahead of the guy. Without even looking, I knew where his eyes had focused as we crossed the street. I deliberately strolled the way that some of the modeling people had taught me, swaying my hips just enough to draw attention to them without being too overt about it.

Once we reached the other side of the street, I slid a pen out of my pocket. Just after passing the alleyway next to a closed butcher's shop, I dropped the pen in front of me, trying to make it look like an accident. Cursing aloud, I bent down to grab the pen off the cement, lingering just a little.

The poor guy never saw what hit him. There was the sound of an electric jolt, followed by a yelp and a thud. I turned to look over my shoulder in time to see Regent and Nimue, both in costume, dragging the man into the alley together. Both spoke in concert, "You can stay right there if you want."

Rolling my eyes, I straightened up. Inwardly, I was just glad this had worked. We'd needed to get the man to stop right in front of that alley without looking up long enough for Regent to get close with his scepter. Looking down the street while whispering a thanks that the man hadn't simply gone around me, I saw Tattletale, out of costume, approach at a jog. She carried a backpack. "Are we clear?" I asked once she was close enough.

Nodding, Lisa passed me to head into the alley. "No one's following." She paused, then looked at me and lowered her voice. "Your father's still looking, but you lost him pretty thoroughly."

My mouth opened before shutting. All I could say was, "Good." Then I followed her into the alley. The back door into what had been the butcher's shop was open, as Nimue and Regent finished dragging the man inside. Lisa and I glanced at each other, then stepped through the door, closing it after us.

Reaching into the backpack she was carrying, Lisa tossed me my costume before taking out her own. The two of us changed quickly before making our way into the other room, where we could hear the man already bitching loudly and thoroughly. He was cursing up a storm, threatening a bunch of stuff that wasn't physically possible and some other stuff that I kind of had my doubts about.

Bitch was there, accompanied by all four of her dogs. They weren't powered up yet, since the four dogs on their own had been sufficient to chase any of the homeless people out of the building and make sure it stayed empty long enough for us to use it. We hadn't been sure which of our ambush sites we'd end up using, but all of them had the benefit of being easy for a handful of dogs to secure.

Our target was struggling to stand up from the metal chair he'd been deposited in, but every time he started to stand, Regent made a lazy gesture with his hand and the man fell right back down. The chair itself had been bolted to the floor, courtesy of Rachel while she had been waiting. "Motherfuckers!" He screamed. "You know what Skidmark's gonna do to you when he finds out you're fucking with the Merchants?! He'll take that scepter and he'll fuck all your asses with it! Then he'll make you all li-"

Tugging several ropes out of the top hat that she was holding in one hand, Nimue grinned while interrupting the man's ranting. "You know you're supposed to let us make our demands before you start promising all kinds of extra, bonus things."

The man halted his shouting for a second, staring at the girl in her sexy magician's outfit before trying to lunge off the chair once more. This time, instead of Regent knocking him back down, Bitch whistled sharply. At the sound, the dogs that had been sitting docile at her feet lunged up and started barking loudly as they came for the man, who shrieked while jerking backwards against the chair.

"Thanks, babe," Nimue nodded to the other girl before tossing out the handful of ropes she had been holding. Seemingly of their own accord, the ropes wrapped themselves around the man's chest and legs, securing him tightly to his seat so that he couldn't move. "Mmm, I do like someone who looks good in restraints," she teased, drawing the man's attention to her before giving him a tip of her top hat. "Maybe if you answer all our questions nice and quickly, we could find another way to use them."

While the man was still trying to figure out how to react to that, I nudged Tattletale. "Sure you don't need any help or anything?" I asked under my breath.

She gave me a vulpine smile and shook her head. "Don't worry. I've got this." Then she moved in front of the man, blocking his view of Nimue. "Good evening, Tyrone."

"How the fuck do you know my name?" The man demanded, jerking a bit in his chair as he looked around. "Wait, right, I know you bitches. Undersiders. What the fuck you messing with me for? You think you can get in on Merchant turf? You think you can roll up on us just cuz we're laying low for a few days, huh? You got another thing coming, bitch."

"How do we know your name?" Lisa considered for a moment before shaking her head. "Pretty sure you already know who sold you out, Tyrone. Do I really need to spell it out for you?"

The man was silent for a second before blurting, "Lenny?! That son of a bitch! That stupid son of a bitch! I told him I'd bring his fucking money! What'd you give him, huh? How much did that cocksucker take to point you to me?"

The truth was that we had no idea who this 'Lenny' was. We'd simply followed a low-level, nobody drug pusher the previous evening. He'd obviously had no idea where the Merchants would be keeping any of their prisoners, but he had been the first step. Nimue had lifted the creep's phone from his pocket without him noticing, and Tattletale had used her power to get past his password. Then it had been a simple matter to go through his text history and find the member of the Merchants that he reported to, the non-cape lieutenant that happened to be sitting right in front of us now. As far as we could tell, Tyrone was pretty high up in the Merchant structure, even if he wasn't a cape himself.

Tilting her head to the side after the man's outburst, Lisa smiled faintly. "Lenny figured out what was in his own best interest and what wasn't. Besides, are you really that surprised?"

"Fuck no," Tyrone spat at the floor, glaring at Tattletale. "You're that bitch that gets into people's heads, ain't ya? That what you did to Lenny? Well it ain't gonna work with me, cunt. Only one thing you could do with that mouth that'd convince me to tell you a god damn thing."

Rather than rise to that bait, Tattletale simply paused before asking the man, "Do you know where the Merchants are keeping the hostages they kidnapped?"

"Huh?" The man blurted. "Like I'd tell you!"

"Okay, yes you do." Nodding at that, Tattletale went on. "Are they being kept in the city?"

"Fuck you, stupid cunt!" Tyrone shouted.

"Yes," Lisa repeated with a pleased tone. "Thank you, Tyrone, you're being very cooperative. Now, are all the hostages alive and safe?" This time, the man said nothing at all. He just glared for a couple seconds. Still, the blonde girl waited before nodding. "Right, safe enough, maybe a few minor injuries."

"How the fuck would you know that?!" Tyrone demanded then. "What the hell kind of mind-reading _**bitch**_ do you think you are?!"

"Let's play a game," Tattletale held a hand out, and Regent passed her a rolled up poster. When she unfurled it, the poster showed a street map of the city. "Tyrone, where are the Merchants keeping their prisoners?"

After asking that question, she moved her finger over the map slowly, starting in what we knew was generally considered Merchant territory. Her eyes were locked on the captured man, watching his reactions while she gradually traced her finger along the road. "Up this way? Hmm? No? That's kind of surprising, but okay. Then we're going down here? Oh, now we're getting warmer. Are they down here? This way? Huh, are you sure? Yeah, okay, this way then."

Through it all, Tyrone said nothing. His mouth was clamped shut and he kept shaking his head back and forth rapidly. Once in awhile, he would blurt a curse word.

"Up here?" Lisa tapped a part of the map. "Tyrone, are you sure they're keeping the prisoners up here? Okay then, if you insist." Straightening, she turned to me with her finger on the map. "There. The Merchants are keeping their hostages right there."

"Are you sure?" I asked quietly, glancing at the spot on the map.

Her response was a sly grin. "Of course I'm sure.

"Tyrone there told me everything I wanted to know."

 **7-07 – Taylor**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011**_

The still tranquility of the lake was shattered by the sudden, loud squawk of an annoyed bird who had nearly been caught and dragged out of the sky by the soaring fishing line and hook.

"Oh jeeze!" Payton blurted, covering her mouth with one hand while her other hand clutched the fishing rod that had almost yanked the bird out of the sky. She'd been casting her line out into the lake from the edge of the rock and mud covered beach where she, Gregor, Elle, and I were. "Um, whoops."

My view had launched itself from Gregor to Payton at the sound of the bird's cry, and I watched through her eyes as she looked after the rapidly departing flying figure. "Sorry!" She called.

"He was unharmed," Gregor assured her while putting a hand on her shoulder. "Although I find myself curious as to how one with powers such as yours could come so close to accidentally doing such a thing."

"I... was distracted." The girl mumbled her reply. I felt embarrassment rush through Payton's mind that was centered almost entirely on the position of Gregor's hand. At first, I thought the emotion she felt when he touched her was disgust and indignant anger of my own rose up briefly. But no, that wasn't it. She was... huh, what _**was**_ that emotion?

Realizing probably too late that I was prying, I tried to focus on moving my vision out of the girl and into an overhead view. It took me longer than I would have liked, but eventually I managed to switch vision modes. Now I could see the rest of this side of the beach and part of the lake where all four of our fishing lines were. Elle had tossed mine for me, then carefully set the rod itself in my hand. Obviously, if there was any kind of tug at the line someone else was going to have to do something with it since I wasn't plugged into the mobility suit, but it was the thought that counted. The point was to make me feel like I was participating, even if I couldn't move with anything even resembling speed.

It was Tuesday evening, and the sun was on its way down, casting its last rays over the water. The four of us had decided to come out and try fishing as a way of calming down and relaxing after what had ended up being an intense day of training. For all of Faultline's talk of vacation, she still worked her team hard for several hours a day. In my case, about half that time had been learning sign language while the other half had been simply repeatedly moving my arms without the aid of the suit. While the other team members had been running laps, lifting weights, and sparring, I had been sitting in the middle of the dock, repeatedly lifting and lowering my arm, stretching it from side to side, and so on.

My body was sitting in a simple, if kind of ugly looking green lawn chair, while Elle crouched beside me. Her own pole was set carefully against a large rock, and she was dutifully stacking more rocks into a small tower beside it for reasons that I couldn't begin to fathom. Her tongue poked slightly out of the corner of her mouth while she focused intently on her work, stacking those rocks carefully.

"So what's the deal with this whole White Company thing, anyway?" Payton asked after making sure that her own fishing line was properly set after her near-mishap. "Is Faultline meeting with their leader something bad?"

That's where Faultline was at the moment. After the day of training, she had informed us that she was meeting the White Company leader over dinner. And that was their _**actual**_ leader, not just Frontier the field leader of the particular group we'd run into in Vegas, but their founder. Apparently the man wanted to chat about what had happened then.

"They have met before," Gregor informed her. "Their relationship is not particularly friendly, though it is not quite that of enemies either."

"Have they slept together?" Payton's voice was curious.

Gregor paused at that before shaking his head. "I do not know, but I do not believe so. Much of their relationship is unknown to me, but I believe it remains professional only."

Lifting her head, the red-haired girl asked, "She's gotta be annoyed though, right? I mean, if this guy's used all his old Protectorate contacts to build this huge international mercenary group. I looked it up, White Company employs three quarters of all successful mercenary capes that are based in North America and Europe. Everyone else is just small potatoes compared to them."

"He was a founding member of the Protectorate before splitting away from them to form White Company," Gregor reminded her. "He possesses a great many resources unavailable to most capes. Whatever bad blood there may be between him and Triumvirate for his defection, others within the Protectorate organization feel a strong loyalty to the man. Hero is still, after all, known as the greatest tinker in the world. His success is not a surprise."

"Yeah, well, I hope Faultline's meeting with him goes okay." Payton shook her head before focusing on where Elle and I were. "Hey, girls, what do you say we make a game out of this whole fishing thing? The two that catch the most fish before we stop wins?"

Elle was silent at first, gingerly setting a fifth fist-sized rock on top of the previous four before she spoke up abruptly. "Taylor?" Her tone was questioning, while she looked back toward my body.

With a thought, I projected my consciousness partly into Elle's mind. Not enough to be drawn into her other worlds quite yet, but enough that she could hear my thoughts. It was as easy to make happen with her as it was difficult to control any other time. _Think we can catch more fish than they can?_

"Uh huh," Elle answered aloud. I saw her hands carefully stacking a sixth rock on top of her makeshift stone tower. "If you want to." She very gently adjusted the rocks as the tower wobbled somewhat.

 _Okay,_ I gave a mental shrug. _I've never really fished before, but sure. Let's kick the pants off them._

"Taylor says we will kick your pants," Elle informed Payton rather primly while looking up at her.

Laughing easily, the other girl raised an eyebrow at Elle. My subconscious tried to flinch and hiss at the sight of a pretty red-head laughing, but I shut it down as hard as I could. Payton wasn't Emma, and her laugh hadn't been mean-spirited. In fact, the girl had been doing pretty much all she could to make sure I was included in everything that we did. Hell, she'd gone out of her way to ask if Elle and I wanted to fish with her and Gregor while the rest of the team besides Faultline were watching a movie inside. She was about as far from Emma as it was possible to be, and I wasn't going to let my stupid subconscious ruin this evening.

"Well then," Payton announced. "For the glory of our pants, may the best fishing partners win."

Gregor shook his head, chuckling. "More competition," he spoke ruefully before shrugging. "Ah well."

 _So how are we doing this?_ I asked. _You wanna take my line and I'll try to keep my attention on the fish in the water so you know where to cast? I don't think winning a fishing competition counts as combat._

Elle patted the top of her rock tower gingerly while answering with a single word, "Exploring."

I knew what she meant by that word. She wanted the two of us to go into one of her worlds together, the way we had been mapping them out ever since we found out that she **could** pull me in with her. I gave another mental shrug at that. _Okay, I'm not sure how that helps us catch fish, but let's do it._

With another thought, I was no longer seeing through Elle's eyes. Instead, I was standing in the middle of what at first glance appeared to be a simple forest. A slightly _closer_ look, however, revealed that the trunks of the trees themselves were actually a wildly diverse assortment of tall clocks of various shapes. Branches and leaves sprouted from the body of the clocks themselves, while the ongoing sound of their perfectly synced ticking gave the forest of clocks its own sort of heartbeat.

Even now, after doing this so many times in the past couple of weeks that it was second-nature, I was still amazed by the sights within Elle's other-worlds. Hell, the simple fact that I could even join her in them was absolutely amazing. Why? What was so special about me that I, out of everyone else, could actually go into the worlds that Elle did. She couldn't pull anyone else into these other worlds. Until I had come along, she had always been completely alone when her power forced her attention out here, incapable of expressing herself very well. She'd _tried_ to pull other people in after figuring out what she could do with me, but it didn't work. Only I could jump into these worlds with Elle, and none of us could figure out why that was. What had I done to deserve to see such beautiful, astonishing sights? The two of us had explored volcanoes, glaciers, mountains, and even an entire empty city where the buildings were made of a glowing seashell type material. And yet every time we came in here, there was something new and exciting to see. And I had no idea why _**I**_ was able to see them.

"Wow," I spoke slowly while turning in a circle to take in the entire sight. My eyes found Elle standing next to a tall Grandfather clock-tree. "I guess you never lose track of what time it is in this place."

Patting the clock beside her, Elle gave me a bright, cheerful smile and wave. "Hi, Taylor!" She sounded genuinely excited to see me in here again, practically bouncing while stepping forward to catch my hand. "Come on," she turned while pulling me on through the clock forest. "We have to catch the fish."

Laughing in spite of myself at her enthusiasm, I let myself be pulled that way, glancing around curiously as we passed dozens of woodland time-keepers. "So, Elle, do you have a plan about how to catch all those fish from in here, or are we just sort of winging it?"

"Plan," she assured me while continuing to jog through the forest. "But we have to find it." Her head shook ruefully. "I remember the clocks were near it, but I don't remember where it is."

"No problem," I replied while squeezing her hand. "We'll find it, but what exactly are we looking for?"

She told me, and I laughed in spite of myself. "Oh damn. That is _definitely_ going to help us win."

Together, the two of us jogged through the forest. Several times, the leaves of the trees around us shifted to show a view of the outside world whenever Gregor or Payton addressed Elle. She gave a few distracted answers, but it was probably clear to them that she wasn't paying attention. Which, I suppose must have been made abundantly clear as soon as my body had vanished from its spot on the chair.

Eventually, we reached the edge of the forest of clocks. A roaring noise had gradually overtaken the sound of the ticking, and I figured out why immediately. Ahead there was a wide river that led to a waterfall cascading down over a cliff. Though waterfall was probably the wrong word, since whatever was flowing through this river and tumbling down the side of the mountain wasn't water at all. It was a bright, amethyst color, and looked somewhat thicker than water should have been. After glancing toward Elle, who nodded, I crouched down and touched the flowing liquid before cupping some of it in my hand and lifting it up. It was indeed thicker than water, and felt warm to my skin.

"Hit it," Elle instructed. She balled her fist up and punched the air before gesturing to the purple river.

Blinking at that, I shrugged before making a fist of my own. I punched the flowing liquid. As soon as I hit it, however, that part of the river solidified somewhat. It went from being flowing liquid to being an almost jello-like substance, then solidified further until my fist stopped entirely. The concussive force of my punch made the liquid solidify just enough to catch and slow my hand gently before returning to its liquid shape a couple of seconds later so that it could continue to flow around my hands.

"You see?" Elle smiled before smacking both of her open hands, palm down, against the liquid. Again, it solidified enough to stop her hands the instant they struck, then reverted to normal a second later.

"Damn, Elle," I tried to punch the liquid again before raising an eyebrow. "This stuff is pretty cool." I let the liquid play through my fingers a little before straightening. "Actually, it could be really useful."

"It could?" She asked, head tilting curiously at me while letting her fingers dance through the river.

I nodded. "Sure, some kind of ballistic protection gel like this? Does Faultline know about it?"

Her head shook absently. "I didn't think it was important. Anything I take out of here comes back when I stop using it anyway." Biting her lip, Elle added, "And I can't bring her in to show her the river."

"Well," I suggested, "Maybe I can carry some out with me." When the other girl just blinked curiously at me, I went on. "You bring my body in and send it out, right? So maybe I can carry something out with me when I go. Like..." I looked around. "I don't have anything to carry the liquid, but let's test it with this." Reaching down, I plucked up a single rock and showed it to her."When we go back out again, we'll see if I get to bring this with me and keep it." Then I hesitated as a thought struck me before showing the rock to her again. "Is that okay? I mean, all this stuff pretty much belongs to you, Elle. Do you mind if I take it out with me? We don't have to do any of this if you don't want to."

"It's mine," the blonde confirmed before setting her hand on my shoulder, squeezing a little bit while her smile brightened as she continued. "And you are my friend, Taylor. So it's yours too."

My mouth opened and then shut, my throat closing up a little as my attempt to speak failed. I looked away, blinking rapidly a couple of times to clear my vision. "Elle," I managed to get out before having to swallow hard past the lump in my throat. I tried again, but all I could say was a completely inadequate, "You **are** my friend. And I wish I'd met you a long time ago."

"So do I, Taylor." Her head bobbed in agreement before she pointed. "But we are not going to catch enough fish if we don't hurry. I remember it was past the purple jello river. We still have very far to go."

Looking down at the rock in my hand that had prompted all of that, I carefully tucked it into my pocket. For such a simple thing, I suddenly treasured it. Which was silly, really. It was just a rock after all, barely more than a pebble. There was nothing special about it whatsoever. Except that there was. It was special not for what it was, but because it was _Elle's_ rock. And for me, that suddenly meant I wouldn't have traded it for all the money in the world. She was my friend, my real, **true** friend. That mattered more to me in that moment than anything else possibly could have.

"Right," I finally managed after pushing that rush of emotion down. I sniffed once before straightening while blinking my eyes to clear more dampness from them. "So let's go win this game, huh?"

Together, Elle and I backed up a few yards before sprinting forward. We ran right across the top of the river, the liquid solidifying under our pounding footsteps just long enough for us to take the next step. On the other side, we continued down a slope that eventually led to a wooden bridge across a wide chasm. Elle knew where she was going by that point, and over the next couple of hours she led me eventually to what looked like a lake similar to the one in the real world. This one, however, had a bunch of stone pillars sticking up out of the middle of it, with wide-rimmed bowls in the top roughly five feet across. They looked like giant stone birdbaths.

As the two of us stood on the edge of that lake, we could see the real-world reflected in its surface. Gregor was standing there, watching where Elle's body still knelt curiously. His voice warned, "You two may wish to hurry with whatever you are doing. We have captured five fish between us so far, and you have still captured none. "

Smirking in spite of myself, I looked toward the other girl. "So, you wanna tortoise the shit out of their rabbit?"

Grinning back at me, Elle bobbed her head once. "Yes. Let us be tortoises. And you are both a teenager and you fight very well, so you may be a teenage ninja tortoise."

My groan faded into a laugh. "Okay, okay. Let's do this."

With another nod, Elle focused beside me. One by one, the stone birdbath things vanished from where they were. Squinting at the image of the real world in the water, I could see the pillars rising gradually, one after another lifting out of the water there, right where Elle was aiming them.

"My turn," I waved a hand and then Elle focused on me. There was a slight feeling of disorientation, and then I was sitting back on the beach beside Payton and Gregor, who were staring out at the stone pillars. My vision was once again a wide-open view of everything around me, and all of us could see at least ten fish jumping and splashing in the top of the various water-filled stone bowls.

"There," Elle announced happily after rising to her feet. I noticed then that the stack of stones she had been making a couple hours earlier looked a lot like the things now rising out of the lake. "Are we counting them now?" She asked with a hint of a mischievous glint in her eyes.

After staring at the stone pillars for another moment, Payton slowly shook her head. "You know what?" She announced. "I think we're just going to assume you guys won."

"Yay!" Elle cheered. "We are ninja tortoises. Right, Taylor?"

"Ninja... tortoises?" Gregor echoed, his confusion readily apparent.

My hand finally obeyed the order I'd been sending it ever since my body had reappeared, slipping its way down to my pocket where I found the rock resting right where I had put it. I smiled, the gesture coming naturally to my face.

I didn't know what was going to happen when we did this mission that Faultline had signed us up for. I still hadn't figured out how I felt about the idea of stealing technology from a group of **heroes** just to give it to a known criminal. Part of me felt like I should have felt worse than I did about it, but I couldn't really find it in me to care all _that_ much. After all that Faultline and the others had done for me, they mattered more to me than some idea of what was legal and what wasn't.

 _Yeah, Elle._ I replied inwardly then after taking the time to make my hand lift itself into a gradual thumbs up. _Ninja tortoises. You and me._

Because right or wrong, legal or illegal, when it came down to loyalty to the law or loyalty to my friends, I knew which one I'd choose at this point.

It wasn't even a question.

 **7-08 – Emma**

 _ **Tuesday, April 19th, 2011**_

"Pssst." Crouched behind the air conditioning vent on top of the motel roof, I hissed again quietly.

That time, the rifle-toting Merchant thug who had been leaning slightly off the roof to peer at the street below turned toward me. His gun came up to his shoulder while he took a step my way, then one more. "Who's there?" He demanded to know. "Fucking Dwayne, if you're screwing with me again, I swear-"

I froze time, letting the red haze come over my vision before rising from my hiding place. Trotting around the now-motionless man, I plucked the stun gun from my belt. Moving right up behind the guard, I positioned myself to set the weapon as close to him as I could. Then I restarted time and shoved the stun gun right up to his side while pressing the trigger. The man jerked instantly as the electricity coursed through him, his body seizing up before he started to collapse.

Freezing time again, I moved around to his front. He'd released the gun in the process of falling, and I put my hands near it before releasing my power. The rifle fell right into my hands, and I immediately used my power a third time. Taking a step back, I carefully set the rifle on the ground a safe distance away. As soon as I released it and stepped away, the gun was as frozen as everything else.

By then, the stunned guard was about halfway down. I moved back to him and positioned my hands near his coat. After taking a moment to brace myself, I released the time-freeze while simultaneously grabbing with my hands. My fingers caught hold of the man's coat just before he would have hit the ground hard. His weight yanked me off balance, but I was able to slow his fall so that he hit much more quietly than he would have. Between that and catching his gun, there had been almost no sound.

"Thanks," I whispered to the man while he twitched and spasmed. "I was afraid you'd fall off the roof completely if you didn't come closer. Can you imagine the racket **that** would've made?"

The man was still twitching, but I was able to get the gist of his response, which amounted to me doing anatomically impossible things to myself. Tutting, I rose and moved back to the rifle that I had set down. Lifting it up, I carefully examined the weapon. I didn't know a lot about guns, but this one looked nice. It had a scope and everything. I checked the chamber the way Tattletale had explained, then pointed it at the man. He had time to realize what I was doing before I pulled the trigger.

There was a whuff of air, and then the dart within the rifle shot out to smack the man in the leg. He jerked before groaning out loud as the energy left his body entirely. Then he was unconscious.

Using my com, I spoke quietly. "Good news, Tattletale. You were right about the gun he had. Tranquilizer rounds. Are-" I looked around once more to verify that no one else was up here on the roof, then reached down to take the man's radio from his belt. With the weapon and the radio in hand, I froze time before throwing myself off the roof. Gradually, I floated across the street away from the motel and toward the higher roof of the building across the street, where Tattletale herself was waiting.

Landing beside the other girl, I let time resume while continuing, "-you sure you can use it though?"

Lisa jumped a bit at my sudden appearance before squinting at me. "You enjoy doing that, don't you?"

I shrugged, smiling a little behind the mask. "Maybe a little bit. Seriously though, you can use this?"

She took the gun from me, checked it, then raised the rifle to peer through the scope at the motel below, scanning it over the lot where a handful of the Merchant thugs were moving around, calling threats and raunchy jokes to each other. "Yeah, I've got it. Thanks, now I can cover you guys from here."

This motel was where the Merchants were keeping their prisoners. It was one of those cheap, exterior-access places. The place was a three story affair shaped like a U, with the parking lot in the middle and the manager's office right at the base of it. There were stairways on both sides and both ends, and there were at least Merchants on every walkway in addition to the ones in the lot, most of them openly armed. The hostages were being kept in each of the guest rooms.

Nodding, I used my comm again. "Okay, let's go through it. Nimue, are you in position?"

"Babe," her reply came back immediately. "There's a whole lot of positions I could be in right now that would make you super-happy. You have no idea. But I suppose this one'll have to do for now."

"I'll, uhh, take that as a yes." Flushing slightly in spite of myself, I went on. "Regent are you... ready?"

"Ready to hear more about those positions, sure." I could hear the smirk in Regent's voice before he went on. "And yeah, sure, I'm where you wanted me to be too. Are we doing this or what?"

"Almost," I assured him before moving on. "Bitch? How close are you?"

"Close," came her short, grunted reply. There was a pause before she added hesitantly, "I think."

Wincing, I moved to the other side of the roof. If Rachel was nearby, I should be able to see her.

"There," Tattletale pointed from beside me, and my eyes found the girl in question just as she came around a corner. She'd only brought three of her dogs this time, leaving both of the new ones, the Dalmatian Phoebe and the bulldog Bentley behind. Rachel had said that she wasn't sure about their training just yet, especially around a bunch of probably panicked hostages. Actually, the words she'd used had been 'stupid useless fucking crybabies', but I'd gotten the gist of it.

The dogs weren't quite at their _full_ size yet, but they were still pretty damn big. Bitch was leading them down the street, and I was about to confirm that she was right where she needed to be when a large figure abruptly **appeared** out of nowhere directly behind Rachel and between two of her dogs.

"Bitch!" I called over the comm as my eyes went wide. "Behind yo-"

She was already turning, even as the big man stretched both of his hands and one of his feet out. He kicked at one of the dogs while grabbing hold of the other two. As soon as he touched them, all three animals and the man himself vanished from sight, disappearing instantly.

"What the fuck," I blurted in shock. "That's not—the Merchants don't have..." I was floundering.

"They don't have one of those either," Tattletale pointed out as a figure moving at blurring speeds rushed straight at Rachel. We could barely make out the form before Bitch was hit hard enough to knock her to the ground. Lisa raised the rifle, but shook her head. "They're moving too fast, I'd miss."

Cursing, I leapt off the roof, letting myself fall for a second before using my power. That red glow came back, and I guided myself toward the ensuing brawl that was taking place within three blocks of the Merchant's motel base. What the hell was going on? The Merchants didn't have a teleporter or someone with super speed. Had they been recruiting? And if not, who the fuck were these people?

Landing on the ground, I saw Rachel frozen in the midst of lunging to her feet while throwing a wild, completely inaccurate punch about three feet to the side of where the other figure had moved to.

As for the second figure, it was definitely female. She was dressed like a ninja, with a black and blue color scheme. Her face was obscured by a black helmet with a visor and blue mesh covering her mouth.

I was going to have to breathe soon, so I hurried to set myself close to the speedster. Then I kicked out as hard as I could. At the last instant, I set time back to normal while hissing, "Get away from her!"

The girl may have been fast, but she wasn't _**that**_ fast. My foot nailed her in the middle of the chest, knocking her to the ground with a surprised cry. Her figure blurred again as she rolled, and I used my own power just in time to see her frozen in mid-lunge toward me. Sidestepping, I put myself beside the girl and positioned my hands before releasing the freeze. My hands caught hold of her arm and I gave her a quick, hard yank that put her on the ground on her stomach before putting my knee into her back.

"Boy, you Merchants must've been real busy recruiting," I mused aloud before demanding, "Now where are the dogs?" I twisted her arm a little bit. "Where did that guy take them?"

Bitch was already rushing forward, foot raised to kick the girl in the face. Before she could, another figure leapt into her path. I caught a glimpse of gleaming gold before Bitch went tumbling to the ground. Then that gold figure put a foot on Rachel's back, effortlessly holding her in place just as a single dart from Tattletale's appropriated rifle rebounded harmlessly off her.

"Myriad, stop!" The figure beneath me called. "Everybody, stop! Just wait!"

The golden girl, Myriad apparently, froze. "Aevum?" She asked questioningly while frowning at me. Now that I had a better look at her, I saw that she really was gold. She wore no mask, and her entire body looked like the figurine mounted on top of a trophy.

"We're not Merchants," the figure beneath my knee announced. "And we're not working for them. Are you trying to say that _you're_ not working with them either, Undersiders?"

I paused, glancing in the direction of Tattletale up on the far roof, "You know who we are?"

"Of course," the girl whose arm I was holding replied. "We pay attention to who the capes are in any city we go to. You're the Undersiders, and you lost your leader a few days ago when he switched sides. We figured that was when the rest of you joined up with the Merchants."

"We're not with them," I informed her. "We're robbing them and freeing their hostages."

"And we're here to free the hostages too," she replied carefully. "So could you let me go so that my teammates will relax a little bit and we can talk this out?"

After thinking about it for a second, I nodded and straightened up slowly, taking my knee off of the girl's back while releasing her arm. Then I stepped away from her while speaking to the golden girl. "Fine, let Bitch up then. And tell us where the dogs are before she tears one of your throats out."

Taking her foot off of Rachel, Myriad stepped away. "They're fine. Tag just teleported them out of the way so they wouldn't howl and let the Merchants know something was up."

The other girl, Aevum I supposed, picked herself up while adding, "He'll bring them back if you can keep them quiet."

Bitch started to snarl, but I interrupted in as firm a voice as I could manage. I didn't want Rachel to start another fight, but I didn't want her to think I was being too soft or just rolling over either. I had to show I was in charge. "Just bring them back. Let Bitch worry about not alerting everyone."

Aevum paused before nodding as she murmured something too quiet for me to hear. A moment later, all three of the dogs reappeared with the tall figure, who I now saw was wearing what looked like a SWAT outfit with the color scheme changed to green and white. He released the dogs and took a quick step back as they whirled on him, snarling furiously.

"Bitch," I spoke simply before nodding to them. "We can't let the Merchants know something's up."

She was practically snarling as much as the dogs were, but Rachel silenced them with a single word. With another word, the three massive animals positioned themselves around her and sat down.

Aevum paused, glancing to the giant dogs briefly before speaking, "Okay, now that that's settled. No, we're not here to help the Merchants. Like I said, we're here for the hostages. Well, to be specific, we're here for a _specific_ girl that we think they're holding hostage, but we might as well free all of them."

I hesitated, thinking quickly. Mercenaries or bounty hunters from outside of the city, I realized. Probably hired by the PRT. "The mayor's niece," I said aloud. "She's the one you're looking for."

"Got it in one," the girl confirmed. "I'm Aevum, that's Myriad, and the guy is Tag." She gestured to her two companions before adding, "Paracosm and Entropy are nearby, but they should stay in position."

"Yeah, we've got a few of our own like that." I used my comm then. "You guys still good?" Tattletale, Nimue, and Regent confirmed that they were ready, and I nodded to Aevum. "We're good."

The other girl was quiet for a second before inclining her head. "Okay, so if we're both here to free the hostages, we should coordinate. Much better chance of pulling this off without anyone getting hurt if we're working together instead of getting in each other's way."

"No, fuck you," Rachel spat. "We wouldn't work with you if you-"

"Bitch," I interrupted, putting a hand on her shoulder. "There's more important things than fighting with these guys right now." She twisted her shoulder free while I added, "And if any of them come near you or your dogs again, you can do whatever you want to them."

She glared at me for a second before looking away while muttering that I was damn right she would. But she didn't object further, and her glare hadn't been nearly as hate-filled as I'd expected.

"Right," Tag spoke up, folding his arms over his chest. "Not touching the dogs, got it." Looking toward Aevum, he added, "So are we really working with these guys, boss?"

Instead of answering immediately, the girl continued to study me for a few seconds before speaking. "I guess the Undersiders have a leader after all." Then she nodded. "Let's talk about how we can do this together."

"Works for me," I replied simply. "But cross us and you'll regret it."

* * *

"Come one, come all!" Tyler's loud voice called from the center of the parking lot where she had just swept off her invisibility cloak to reveal herself. "Witness the awesome Nimue as she delights," she continued while stretching her arms out grandly, the cloak shimmering in one hand. "And amazes."

"It's that Undersider bitch!" One of the men blurted after they had recovered from the surprise of her unexpected entrance.

From where I was crouched on the roof of the motel, I saw Nimue shake her head at that as she replied, "Nah dude, that's the girl with the dogs. Honestly, you really should be able to tell us apart."

The thugs up on the walkways between motel rooms were already moving to see what was going on, while one of the guys below took a step closer to Nimue while yanking his pistol out of his waistband. "It's just one stupid cunt," he spat the words while taking aim. "Let's end her and get on with the party."

The man pulled the trigger, but just before he did, his hand jerked a little bit and his shot was sent off toward the ground. He tried again, only for his hand to twist the other way that time, throwing his aim off once more. "What the fuck?!" The man blurted, and I had to smile. Regent was clearly enjoying himself.

Stepping closer to the man, Nimue tutted regretfully. "A party? And I wasn't invited? Man, you do not know what you're missing." Tipping her top hat to him, she added, "There's not a single party I haven't improved. Not even that one for the purity, no fun times before marriage club." She was grinning without a hint of self-consciousness as she added, "Though the club president did have to resign and turn in her ring afterward."

Beside me, Aevum choked a little. "Is she serious?"

"You know what?" I answered honestly. "I can't tell anymore."

Regardless, Nimue definitely had everyone's attention by that point. The thug who had been shooting at her sneered. "You think you're hot stuff, huh?" His hand moved behind Tyler, grabbing at her backside. "We'll show you what a real party is."

Rather than jump, twist away, or do anything else to stop the man from groping her, Nimue just smiled. "Oh you poor little boy. Is that supposed to shock me? Because I have news for you." Holding up her hand, she showed him her empty palm before clasping it into a fist. "I'm the shocking one."

With that, there was a sudden jolt of electricity over Nimue's costume, and the man with his hand on her was thrown to the ground with a loud, high-pitched squeal.

Aevum started to rise at that, but I caught her arm. "Wait, not yet."

Below, one of the other thugs had lunged toward Nimue with a knife. She spun, flipping the hat off her head to her hand. The blade and most of the man's arm disappeared into the open end of the hat, just before she gave it a twist while simultaneously kicking out with her foot at the side of the man's knee. His leg was knocked out from under him, and the man fell, his trapped arm snapping in the process.

Pulling the hat free of the man's arm, his knife no longer held in his hand, Nimue proceeded to practically dance her way through several more of the thugs trying to attack her. A couple further back tried to use guns, but Regent was able to handle them without too much trouble.

From his spot on the ground where she had thrown him, one of the men blurted, "Fucking _**bitch!**_ "

"Now see, I'm really starting to think that you guys aren't paying attention," the magician tinker lamented while pivoting toward the man. "One more time, I'm Nimue. This is how I make an entrance. Bitch's entrance is... well..." She gestured past them.

"Go, Bitch." I said into my comm. "You're on."

The men spun toward the rear of the lot nearest the manager's office in time to see three massive figures leap down from the middle of the roof where Rachel and her dogs had been positioning themselves while Nimue distracted everyone. Bitch was riding on Judas, and all three animals were enormous enough that their landing shook the ground around them before they let out a chorus of deafening howls.

"That," Nimue informed them. "Is how Bitch makes an entrance."

The giant dogs lunged into the crowd of men, who were taken entirely by surprise and were barely able to put up a fight. Meanwhile, Aevum spoke a single word and I saw Tag teleport not just one, but freaking half a dozen different versions of Myriad (apparently she could duplicate herself) onto each of the motel walkways. The Myriads quickly began to work their way through the guards there who were trying to focus on the fight below them.

"Guys in the corner," Aevum spoke up then, and I looked to see two men at the back of the lot. Both were using the decorative wall as cover while taking careful aim at the nearest dog with what looked like heavy duty rifles. She continued with, "Entropy, you're on."

As soon as she said it, one of the supposed Merchant thugs who had been hanging back out of the way swept his ratty old coat and hat off, revealing a figure in a modified race car driver jumpsuit and red mask. He put himself in the path of the gunmen just as they opened up with a hail of gunfire. All of it poured in toward Entropy, only for all of the bullets fly off into the sky as soon as they got anywhere near him.

Finally, the door of the manager's office flew open and two of the remaining Merchant capes, Benjamins and Skidmark, came rushing out. As they appeared, I nodded to Aevum while grabbing the backpack that had been sitting beside me. That was what the two of us had been waiting for. The other girl leapt from the roof to the railing below, then from there to the next railing, and then to the ground. All of it came in rapid succession. I, on the other hand, just froze time and descended to the ground.

Time started up again just in time for me to hear Skidmark bellow, "All right you donkey ass licking sperm stains! Settle the fuck down, or my boys here might just add a few holes to all our _**fucking**_ hostages!" He gestured back toward where the men with the heavy rifles were. "Anyone moves and they open up on every room in this place, you dumbfucks!"

"Actually," Aevum spoke up from the direction that he had been gesturing. He spun around to find her standing over the now-unconscious thugs. "You might want to be the one that doesn't move, Ski-" She stopped, sighing. "Look, do you have a serious name? Because Skidmark has to be a mistake."

"You wanna see a mistake?" Skidmark recovered quickly from his surprise. "I'll show you a mistake."

He nodded toward Benjamins, and the other man lifted his hand to show the coin that he was holding. "You want th-"

"Tattletale," I spoke sharply. As soon as I did, there was the sound of something shooting past me, and Benjamins stopped in mid-sentence with one of the tranquilizer darts sticking out of his back. He blinked twice in confusion, then collapsed while muttering something about that not being fair.

"That's it, you stupid snot-swallowing incompetent little-" Skidmark began.

While he was talking, I froze time. Quickly pulling the backpack off my shoulders, I ran forward while unzipping it. Positioning myself in front of Skidmark and a few yards away, I reached into the open bag and tugged out a baseball. Rearing back, I threw it as hard as I could toward the man. It flew about a foot away from my hand before freezing in the air, the same as everything else.

I repeated that with about a dozen more balls, all aimed slightly differently and from all sides. The air was full of frozen baseballs when I finally stepped back and let time resume.

"-fucktards!" Skidmark finished, just as he was hit from all sides by all those balls hitting him like a dozen punches. He collapsed with a cry, the sudden assault taking him completely by surprise.

"Don't-" I started to say before freezing time. Running straight at the man, I kicked out hard and released my power just in time for my foot to nail the man right in the face. "-fucking move!"

And with that, it was over. Everyone who was still standing took one look at what had happened to their leader and the other cape that was with him, as well as the rest of their friends, and surrendered.

* * *

"Damn it!" I came out of the last motel room and shook my head. "They're not here."

Aevum, standing nearby, winced. "The ones you were looking for? Yeah, the Alcott girl isn't here either. How many hostages did you count?"

"Forty-six," I replied. When she nodded her agreement with that number, I turned to stalk into the lot.

Tattletale met me partway, a heavy bag already on her shoulder. In the distance, I could see Bitch, Regent, and Nimue loading up larger bags that the dogs would be carrying. "We need to go," Lisa informed me tersely. "Cops are on their way. Any luck?"

I shook my head and walked past her, kicking the trussed up Skidmark, who groaned in pain. "Hey, there's only forty-six hostages here. That's less than half of the ones you took. Where are the rest of them?"

Rolling onto his side, Skidmark sneered up at me, letting me see his yellowed and missing teeth. "Oh, the rest of 'em?" He asked, sounding smug. "You think we'd be stupid enough to keep 'em all in one fucking place? Hell naw, Greaser and Mush took the rest out of the city, just in case something like this happened. And before you ask, ain't none of us know where they are now. That's the whole fucking point. They're out of our reach, so we can't squeal to you or the cops. We get caught, and they, ahhh, negotiate for our release."

The sirens were nearly to us by that point as he finished, smug as ever, "And if the cops don't fucking let all of us go? Those hostages all fucking die."

 **7-09 – Madison**

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

My fitful, fairly restless sleep was interrupted the next morning by a knock at the door of the room that doubled as my prison cell. The knock returned a few seconds later while I blearily blinked my eyes and tried to orient myself, before an unfamiliar yet polite voice spoke up. "Miss Archive? Are you decent?"

For a second, I stared at the door in disbelief. The memory of why I had been so upset the night before came rushing back, and I groaned. Trevor. Trevor had been involved with that stupid fight tournament. He'd been _joining_ the Empire. My brother was a part of the Nazi Super-Club. No wonder my head hurt.

Shoving my way out of bed, I looked down at my costume before touching the simple ski mask that Othala had provided so that I could sleep without either uncovering my face or having to rest with that visor on all night long. Everything seemed to be in order so I walked toward the door with a sigh.

The thought had occurred to me, of course, to simply refuse to open it, or even to barricade the door. But that seemed less hero and more sullen little brat, and it probably wouldn't accomplish anything anyway. Somehow I shoving a chair in front of a door and sitting on the bed with my fingers in my ears would do anything except convince the Empire they had abducted a particularly tall five-year old.

Opening the door, I found myself facing a man with pure white skin. He held a tray laden down with breakfast food, and nodded courteously when he saw me. "Ah, good morning, Miss Archive. May I come in?" He indicated the tray in his hands. "Your food is still warm, and I would hate to lose that."

"Alabaster?" I remembered who the guy was while stepping back to let him in. Again, being stubborn and argumentative wouldn't accomplish anything. I needed them to think I was being as cooperative as I could. That was the only way that I was going to find a way to get the hell out of here. And I had to get the hell out before I could smack every ounce of idiot out of my brother. So, playing nice.

"You honor me with your knowledge of my identity, Miss Archive." Alabaster stepped into the room, crossing to the table in the corner to set the tray down. He didn't bother closing the door behind him. Why would he? It wasn't like I could go anywhere. Even if I escaped this place, I had no idea where Crystal was. I wouldn't be able to find her before they found out I left and... I shuddered at the thought.

"My apologies, for what they are worth, for condition and necessity of your imprisonment," the man spoke after setting the tray down. Pivoting on his heel to face me, he continued. "I hope that your eventual release has been made clear to you, and that you do not feel that this is a hopeless matter."

After gaping a bit at the strangely polite racist in spite of myself, I shook my head. "No, they... they made that pretty clear. We get to go home safe and sound after this, whatever it is, is over."

Alabaster gave a single, gracious nod before stepping away from the table. "If it were me, I might find myself doubting the sincerity of such an offer. Particularly if I could not assure myself of the safety of my fellow captive. With that in mind, would you like to speak with your teammate before you eat?" He asked that while producing a small cell phone from his belt and held it up.

My eyes widened at the offer and I gave a quick nod. "You'd let me talk to Laserdream?"

"Of course, Miss Archive." The man pressed a button on the phone while continuing. "There is no reason at all for us not to allow the two of you to speak, and your cooperation should be rewarded."

He spoke on the phone for a few seconds, telling the person on the other end what was going on.

At least his phone _worked._ I'd tried repeatedly to use either the phone that the Brigade had provided or my own, both of which had been safely stored away. Hell, I'd even tried to use that laptop that I had accidentally absorbed the same day this had all started. I'd used the cover of the bathroom to hide what I was doing. But neither device ever had any kind of connection, and I was sure that there was some kind of signal blocker over the building that the Empire's own electronics could get through. Clearly Kaiser had thought about the fact that I could spit out the things that I absorbed and had planned an appropriate counter-measure. That or the building simply always had an active signal jammer.

After taking a minute to reassure whoever he was talking to that this would be fine, Alabaster hit the speaker button and handed the phone to me. I took it and hesitated before speaking. "Laserdream?"

"Archive," Crystal's voice was like music, her relief obvious. "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

My mouth opened. Instinctively I wanted to tell her about Trevor, about what that fucking idiot had done. But I couldn't. Saying anything would put my brother in danger, no matter how polite Alabaster was acting. I had to remember that he was the bad guy. If he was really this chivalrous, decent person, he'd let us go. He may be _nicer_ outwardly than someone like Crusader, but that didn't make him good.

"Archive?" Crystal spoke again, sounding a little more alarmed at my silence. "Are you all right?"

I shook myself and swallowed hard before replying, "Yeah, yes. They still haven't done anything that bad. You know, besides the whole kidnapping thing. Unless you count Rune killing me about seventy-three times in that fighting game she likes so much. That was kind of humiliating."

Poor Crystal was silent for a few seconds before speaking again. "Good. I... can't really say a lot about what they're having me do. I'm pretty sure they'll get pretty upset if I talk too much. But I think it's okay if I tell you it's almost done. Just hang in there and we'll get out of this. Don't rock the boat."

"That's my plan," I assured her while looking toward the patiently waiting Alabaster. "What about you? They're not hurting you or anything, are they? This thing they're making you do, it's not that bad?"

Again, she hesitated. "No, I mean I'm not completely sure. I don't know much about what it is, but they're not hurting me or anything. It's... draining, but I'm okay." There was something else to her voice, something she wasn't saying out loud, but I couldn't pick up on exactly what it was.

"Be careful," I told her quietly. "Don't go overboard. I'm okay here." I wasn't really. I desperately wanted to get the hell out of here so I could drag my brother home. But the last thing I wanted was for Crystal to overdo whatever she was doing and hurt herself. Or worse, try to escape and get killed.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." From the sound of Crystal's voice, she knew something was up. But neither of us could speak openly. "Keep your head down. This'll be over soon, I promise."

We spoke for another minute before the person on Crystal's end told her that was enough. After assuring me again that this wouldn't last too much longer, she disconnected. I looked at the phone for a moment before handing it back to Alabaster. "Thank you for letting me talk to her." I said quietly.

After clipping the phone back to his belt, the man nodded. "Of course. Now, I will leave you to your breakfast. I'm afraid there are pressing matters that require my attention. Miss Othala will be up within the next hour or two to sit with you until Rune fulfills her daily obligations to her school." He gave an actual bow then before leaving the room, adding, "If you require anything desperately, there will be a guard standing outside of this room. You need only knock and inform him."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone in this place. I stood there for a second, closing my eyes while murmuring under my breath, "Trevor, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Then I straightened, moving to the table. Even though I was too worried to be hungry, starving myself wouldn't accomplish anything. Sitting down, I picked up the fork and forced myself to start eating.

Besides, I couldn't exactly kick my brother's ass and drag him home by his ear on an empty stomach.

* * *

"So what made you decide to become a hero?"

It was later that afternoon, and I had been engrossed in my own thoughts for the past twenty minutes. Rune's voice interrupted my inner musings, and I blinked up uncertainly. "Err, what?"

"You heard me," the girl retorted. The black mask that covered the lower half of her face hid her expression, but her eyes were serious. "We already know that it takes trauma to make someone manifest powers. I told you about mine. I was in prison and I had to get out. So what kind of trauma did you go through and why'd it make you a hero instead of a villain? What's different about us?" She snorted then. "Besides the fact that I wasn't a nice person to begin with. Let me guess, you were this super nice, innocent little girl and someone tried to kill you or something. That about sum it up?"

I stared at her briefly, then laughed out loud. "Me? Nice?" I almost fell off the bed, though my laughter was more bitter than amused. It was laughter that came because I couldn't cry about it anymore. "No. No, I wasn't a nice person. Trust me, I belonged in jail just as much as you did. Maybe even more."

From her eyes, I could tell the girl was frowning. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I hesitated, part of me thinking that I should be evasive or something to avoid giving something away. Finally, I just sighed before speaking. "I was a bitch, Rune. Trust me, I... you want to know how bad I was before all this?" Swallowing, I shifted on the bed to face the other girl. "I was a bully."

"A bully?" Raising an eyebrow, Rune looked me up and down. "Of what, third graders?"

Flushing at that, I shook my head. "You don't have to be huge or strong to be a bully. Especially when all the teachers think you're this sweet, innocent little girl so they believe anything you say."

"Fair enough," Rune conceded. "Still, how bad of a bully could you have been to merit jail time?"

I didn't respond at first. Glancing away, I thought about my response for a second before speaking. "We put her in the hospital." My eyes closed and I couldn't help the shudder that escaped me. "You don't understand. I don't mean the usual 'ooh give me your lunch money or we'll beat you up.' It's worse than that. There were three of us and we... we tortured her. We spent a year and a half making her life miserable. We stole her homework, we made everyone else in school hate her, we ruined her projects, we spread rumors about her, we... we made her the most hated person in school. Nobody cared about her. She didn't have any friends or any support. Everyone was too scared of being the next target."

My throat had closed up by then, and I had to swallow hard to make myself continue. "It was evil, Rune. The things we did to her, the things we convinced other people to do... I can't even talk about it. And then we almost killed her. What we did, it hurt her pretty bad and she ended up in the hospital."

"What the fuck did she do to piss you off so much?" Rune asked while staring at me.

I shook my head in slow shame, looking away once more. My voice was soft. "Nothing. She used to be friends with one of us. Not me, another girl. Then the other girl became friends with the third one of us, and they started picking on this girl. I helped because... because I was bored. Because I liked being popular with them. Because it was fun and I didn't think of her as a real person. Because I was a spoiled, stupid, selfish little bitch. I did all of it and then she almost died."

There was silence for almost a minute before Rune spoke again. "So you feel guilty," she said slowly. "Guilt made you decide to become a hero? How's that working out for you so far?"

I shot a glance at her, then looked back down with a sigh. "I just want to help people. I know I can't really make up for what I did. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to... to make sure other people don't suffer for no reason like she did. I can't fix it, but I can help fix _other_ problems."

Again, Rune was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, the girl wasn't looking at me. "You really think it's that easy? You just act like an evil bitch for so long and then change your mind just like that?"

I snorted, shaking my head. "No, it's not easy. It's hard. But I made my choice. I didn't want to be that person anymore. I didn't want to be the kind of girl who could do that stuff. So I made myself change."

"It's not that simple!" Rune insisted, pushing herself up off of the bed before spinning to face me. "What about your friends? What about everyone around you that... that sees you that way? How did you ignore them? How did you change when the people you were closest to liked you the way you were?"

My mouth opened and then shut before I shook my head, choosing my words carefully. "It wasn't about what they wanted. It was about what I wanted. I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to change."

Shaking her head almost violently at me, Rune pivoted and strode to the door. She put her hand on the knob and then hesitated. With her back to me, she spoke quietly, her tone almost defeated. "You know how we're making this big point out of not letting you see our faces?"

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, that way I know I can go when this is over, because I don't know who you are." I left out the fact that I knew who Kaiser was.

"Right," turning toward me, hand still on the doorknob, Rune continued. "So what if you had a really important power, one that Kaiser used all the time. And what if he let you see his face, all our faces? What would you think then?"

I frowned at that. "I'd think I was never getting out of here. Why? Is this about Laserdream? Is she-"

"No," Rune replied, shaking her head. "It's not about her. I just..." She went silent before releasing the knob. Stepping away from the door, she faced me before speaking again. "What do you know about... Dinah Alcott?"

The name had barely left her mouth before the girl abruptly jerked. Her body spasmed while electricity danced over it, generated from her costume. She let out a strangled scream, then collapsed to the floor.

"Rune?!" I threw myself off the bed. "Rune, are you all right?! What-"

"My dear girl." The voice at the now-open door interrupted, and I looked up to see Kaiser standing there, a remote held in his hand. He pressed the button again, and more electricity coursed through Rune's body, making her shriek.

"I truly wish you hadn't said that name," Kaiser announced solemnly while Rune writhed on the floor in agony. "That makes all of this... much more complicated."

 **Interlude 7A – Seraph**

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

The shattered remains of broken glass littered the bathroom sink and the surrounding floor, accompanied by scattered red droplets of blood that dripped down from the wall where Victoria Dallon stood with her fist still pressed against the wall where the mirror had been. Her shoulders were shaking violently, though she paid no attention to either that or the pain in her damaged hand. Her attention was far away, lost in the grief that had only seemed to grow stronger these past few days. Conscious thought and reason were washed away by the ocean of overwhelming rage that drove her to lash out.

A slightly detached part of her mind noted the sound of running footsteps as someone rushed up the stairs of her family's house, and then her cousin, Amy, was standing in the doorway. She took in the sight of Victoria standing there with her bleeding fist against the wall before wincing. "Vicky..."

"Oops." Even to herself, Victoria's voice was hoarse and rough. She swallowed hard, painfully forcing down the lump that had settled in her throat before trying again. "Suppose we need a new mirror now. Guess I fucked that up too." The words escaped her without conscious thought or consideration, and from the corner of her eye, she saw the stricken look that crossed Amy's face.

"Vicky..." Trailing off for a moment, Amy hesitated before stepping into the bathroom. Using her shoes, she carefully brushed the largest pile of glass out of the way before crossing to put a hand on Victoria's arm. Gently but firmly she tugged the other girl's hand away from the wall. "Come here."

Passively, Victoria let herself be guided out of the bathroom. Amy pulled her into the hall, then took one of her unattuned vials from a pocket before pressing a finger against the pudding-like substance inside. Then she lifted the vial toward Victoria's lips. "Drink this, Vicky. It'll help with your hand."

Part of Victoria wanted to ignore that, wanted to embrace the pain rather than run from it. She deserved it, deserved to feel that sharp agony. Yet the thought of resisting, of clinging to that deserved pain was accompanied by the thought of her mother. If Carol Dallon knew she was hurt, that she was refusing Amy's healing, she would start focusing on Victoria. And she couldn't. She couldn't worry about that too. Vicky loved her mother, but she also knew that she needed to focus on the others right now.

Taking the vial with her undamaged hand, the blonde girl forced herself to drink it, then slumped down against the wall. "Sorry," she said, her words flat and emotionless. "I thought I was the only one here."

"You were, for awhile," Amy admitted. "Carol brought your dad over to Aunt Becca and Uncle Donny's since they're better at convincing him to eat. And mom and dad are..." She swallowed hard. "They're still in their room. They haven't come out since the Travelers came up empty-handed."

That wasn't really fair, Victoria knew. The Travelers, who had been hired by Amy with the promise of having access to her healing whenever they needed it while they were in the city, hadn't come up **completely** empty-handed. They had located and freed almost half of the Merchants' hostages when the Brigade themselves hadn't been able to accomplish even that much despite the hours and hours spent scouring the city. The real problem was that the other half of those hostages, those who had not been found and now it seemed were impossible to locate, included Madison's family.

The thought made her want to punch another wall. The one thing that had seemed like something they could actually accomplish, saving poor Madison's family, and they had utterly failed. It wasn't fair. Even between the Brigade and that bounty hunter team, they still hadn't been able to find any sign of that second group of hostages. The only information they had was that they were being held 'outside of the city,' which didn't really narrow anything down at all. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of... everything that wasn't Brockton Bay. Madison's family could be literally anywhere.

"What about Eric?" Victoria asked after looking down at her hand for a moment. The regenerative power granted by the Amy's vial had already closed up the wounds left by the glass, forcing the tiny bits of glass that had been caught there out of her skin and to the floor. "How's he doing?"

"Not good," Amy admitted. Her own face was still stained by tears. Crystal was... had been, Vicky reminded herself harshly, a big sister to Amy since the very moment that the adopted girl had been brought into their home. The two were so close to each other that Crystal had been the first one that Amy had come out with the truth about her sexuality to. And then, rather than make Amy out herself to her family alone, Crystal had explained that _she_ sometimes thought about girls that way as well. The two of them had come out that way together, Amy as gay and Crystal as a little bit of both.

That was what Crystal meant to Amy. They were sisters, blood be damned, and Crystal had given Amy the confidence that she needed to come out with the truth about her sexuality, and even to pursue a relationship with Parian, whom they would later come to know as Sabah. That was the person that Amy had lost, and yet she was still here trying to take care of her cousin.

"I'm sorry," Victoria spoke quietly, her eyes closing. "I'm so sorry. You shouldn't be here. You can go."

"Hey, look." Amy's hand was on her chin, making her look up. Victoria opened her eyes to find the other girl staring intently at her. "What you said about fucking up, tell me you aren't blaming yourself."

Vicky's throat had closed up again, forcing her to shrug helplessly as words failed her. "Why not? It's my fault." Before Amy could object, she pressed on. "If I had done my job, my _real_ job, everything would've been fine. You, Eric, Mom, Aunt Sarah, all of you keep trying to tell me to do battlefield control. I'm supposed to stay back and keep watch over what's going on, manipulate the field and keep the others safe. I'm supposed to think things through. I don't. I didn't. And look what happened."

"Vicky," Amy visibly flinched. "You can't do that. You can't just hold that blame. It's not your fault."

"Yeah," Victoria pulled her face away from Amy's hand and pushed herself to her feet. "I can. I do. I absolutely blame myself. If it wasn't for me being a gung-ho bitch who never thinks anything through and has to show off all the time, Crystal and Madison would still be alive. It **is** my fault."

Pushing herself up as well, Amy shook her head. "Please, Vicky, just stop. We have to-"

"I love you, Ames." Victoria interrupted. She had to, before Amy kept talking. "You're practically a sister to me, and you know it. You are. But I can't do this. I can't just sit here and talk about our feelings. That's not who I am. That's not... I can't... it's not me. I have to do something."

"What are you going to do?" Amy's voice was quiet, her eyes studying Victoria carefully.

For a moment, Victoria didn't answer. When she did, her voice was so soft that even she barely recognized it. "I don't know, Amy, but something has to change. **I**... have to change."

* * *

Two hours later, Victoria hovered in the sky high above the city. The solid-light hologram that kept her aloft was that of her old costume, though with white of her usual white and gold altered to black. Though subconsciously she realized that it had been too long since she had slept, the rage that fueled nearly every waking moment of her life since the moment she had realized what Kaiser had just done had driven her to leave the house. She hadn't told anyone, not even Amy, where she was going. Partly because she still didn't know. She'd just had to _get out of there_ and actually do something.

Unfortunately, she had been gliding here through the sky and gazing down at the city for over an hour with no better idea of what that something was. For all that she was driven to act, Vicky was completely clueless as to what that act should be. It was all well and good to vow action and change, but _what_ action? What change? What was she supposed to do? What _could_ she do?

Lost in her grief, she almost missed them. Two figures scurrying through a side alley almost directly below her with the demeanor that she had long ago come to associate with people who were up to no good. Their furtive, careful movements drew her attention just before one of them tilted his head up. As with most criminals that had grown up into the world of capes, these men had been conditioned to look to the sky as well as all around them when checking to see if they were being followed.

Skinheads. Victoria had belatedly realized. The two were skinheads who wore the markings of low-level Empire thugs. She'd found them. After three days of fruitless searching for a gang that had completely gone to ground, and almost entirely by accident, she had finally spotted members of the Empire. Clearly whoever had given the order to go to ground and lay low to ride out the Brigade's retribution hadn't rescinded it yet, so what the hell were these assholes doing out here?

Just before the man's searching eyes would have found her, Victoria turned herself invisible. To be accurate, she created a hologram around herself that displayed the sky behind her, but it was good enough to fool the man. He gazed directly at her location for a few seconds before looking away to scan the rest of the sky. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, the man turned back to nod to his companion. The two of them passed through an unmarked door and into one of the nearby buildings.

Smiling humorlessly to herself, Victoria started to plummet toward the alley. Finally, she could have a little bit of cathartic stress relief by taking her anger out on people who actually deserved it.

Reaching the ground, she summoned a holographic copy of herself, positioning it right in front of the door. The thought of the looks that would be on the faces of those racist fuckbags when that door was kicked off its hinges by her hologram made her smile a little more. If she got lucky, maybe those stupid pieces of shit would even wet themselves if she pushed hard enough.

The foot of the hologram was already lashing out through the air when the realization of what she was doing stopped Victoria short. The hologram froze that way, its foot mere inches from kicking down that door. Her smile had faded, and Victoria found herself staring down at her own hands.

What was she doing? After everything she had said to Amy about needing to change, about how she had to be someone different, she had been about to do the exact same thing she always did: run right into trouble without even stopping to think about it. Nothing had changed, nothing was different. She was still crazy violent Victoria, who had to have a babysitter to stop her from doing stupid things like alert what might be an entire building full of Nazis after spending days searching for them.

If she kicked this door down, what would happen? She had no idea what was inside there, or how many Nazis she'd be dealing with. She didn't know if any of the capes were present, or if there were any innocent people that would suddenly become hostages. She knew _nothing_ except that two men she was pretty damn sure were members of the Empire had gone in there. And she had been about to blow this, the **only** lead that she or anyone in the Brigade had had since that horrible night.

The hologram vanished, and Victoria turned away from the door. Reaching for her comm to call home, she belatedly realized another mistake she had made. The comm was sitting in her bedroom. She hadn't bothered to grab it before heading out. But she still had her phone at least. Quickly, she reached through the hologram of her armor to tug the device out of her pocket and scrolled down to find Amy's number. At that moment, however, the sound of footsteps drew her attention to the end of the alley.

Again, she rendered herself invisible via hologram, and watched as a third gang member came into view. This one was being even more careful than the first two had been. His gaze was flicking everywhere, and his hand was shoved deep into the pocket of his sweatshirt where Victoria could see the outline of a gun. He was clearly on edge and jumpy, his eyes moving to scan every bit of the alley before he continued into it. She was tempted to appear in front of the jackass just to hear him scream.

Yet, again, she stopped herself. Standing there, hidden by her hologram, Victoria took a step back to carry herself further away from the door that the man was approaching. His eyes darted toward the sound of her foot on the pavement, but after a moment he dismissed it and walked up to the door. There, he knocked twice, once, then three times before waiting for a few seconds. The sound of unlatching locks came, as well as a few beeps as an alarm was disconnected. The door was finally pushed open, and one of the men that Victoria had seen go into the building first held it open for the newcomer.

Something, something, she had to do **something.** But what? Not what she would normally do. Victoria's gaze scanned the alley until she spotted a trash can near the end of it. Focusing on that and thinking quickly, she summoned a new hologram. This one, rather than being a mighty warrior in armor, was a small, dirty looking cat. She sat the hologram next to the trash can, then shoved into it hard enough to knock the can over with a loud crash.

Instantly, the two men came away from the door. Guns had appeared in their hands, and were pointed at the source of the noise. Victoria made the cat bump into the can again so they could see it, then made it run right out of the alley before allowing it to vanish.

In the meantime, with the men away from the still-open door, she slipped as quietly as possible through and into the building beyond.

Victoria found herself standing in the back of some old office building that smelled like too much lemon-scented cleaning solution. It almost made her eyes water, and she had to blink a few times.

Stepping aside just in time to avoid the men that were coming back in, grumbling about stupid cats, Victoria watched as they strode down the hall. Biting her lip, she quickly followed them while silencing her phone. Her fingers flew rapidly over the keys as she sent a text to Amy with her location and a short description of what was going on.

One of the men ahead of her, the new one, was complaining. "I still don't see why they can't just tell us where to go. This whole teleportation shit always makes me nauseous."

"Keep complaining and you'll be more than nauseous," the other man warned. "You know why they do it this way. Us grunt nobodies don't get to know where the base is. We come here, get scanned to make sure we are who we say we are, then get teleported to where we need to be. So if we get caught or followed, the boss's secrets stay safe. Hell, why do you think your cell doesn't work in there? That jammer they've got stops your GPS from working so you can't figure out where you were later on."

"Yeah yeah, I get that they're fucking paranoid," the first man retorted. "My problem is, what about us? We're still out here on the streets with those self-righteous assholes, so what are **we** supposed to do?"

The other man shrugged. "Develop powers, I guess." He laughed. "Maybe we could get some kind of reward system going. Ice a dozen fags or kikes and you get to know where the big secret base is."

"That's funny," the first man replied with a slow grin. "I ain't never heard of a reward leading to a reward. Putting some of that trash in the gutter where it belongs, _**and**_ learn some of those secrets? Sounds like a bonus both ways."

The two men laughed together, and Victoria's fury almost blew over. She found her hands clenching, the urge to manifest a sword and show these bastards just how much she could hurt them rising within her. How _dare_ they?

Images of Madison and Crystal swam in her mind, and Victoria very nearly screamed her outrage. Yet she forced herself to keep it under control, thinking of the promise she had made. Change. Thinking things through. Focusing. She could destroy these few guys, or she could find out more about what they were doing and help her family get the revenge they deserved.

By that time, the two men had joined the third in a large room with what looked like an archway made out of black metal with buttons on the side. They all moved to stand in the arch while the one who had been waiting in the room asked, "What're they calling us in for anyway? Which prisoner started shit?"

"The rookie," one of the other men replied absently, already moving to press a button on the side of the metallic arch.

That drew a laugh from the other two, one of them shaking his head while retorting, "That little one? What'd she do, throw her bottle and cry about it?"

Shrugging, the man who had answered spoke in a cool tone, "Beats me. All I know is they're calling in reinforcements to help out. Sounds like they're having some big problem in there."

"Yeah, well if you ask me it's a complete waste of fucking time." The first man shook his head. "They should've just offed both of those Brigade cunts first chance they got. Hell, everyone already thinks they're dead, so what fucking difference does it make?"

Time should have stopped in that moment. The world itself should have frozen along with Victoria's brain. Instead, light from the teleportation arch enveloped the three men, and then they were gone. Yet she hardly noticed. Her mouth was open, the man's words ringing in her ears as she dismissed the hologram that had kept her invisible to them.

Seconds later, while she still stood there in shock, the door at the far end of the room was thrown open.

"Seraph?!" Panacea, Fleur, and Lightstar came rushing into the room. Their eyes found the metal arch, then Victoria herself, standing there without looking at any of them.

Aunt Becca came straight for her. "Seraph, are you all right? What's wrong? What..." She stopped short, staring at the tears on Victoria's face. "Oh my god... what happened?"

She couldn't speak at first. Her mouth moved, but no sound came. She tried again, forcing a single word out in a strained tone, the shock almost physically weighing on her chest.

"Alive..."

"What?" Fleur put her hands up on either of Victoria's shoulders. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"Alive..." The word came a little easier that time, and Victoria dismissed her mask entirely. Blinded as she was by the tears, she still managed to look up toward the other woman as she revealed the secret that she never would have discovered if she had just charged in the way she always had before.

"They're alive."

 **Interlude 7B – Anne**

 _ **Monday, October 15th, 2004**_

"Taaaaaaylor, no, no, you've gotta put the eggs in first before you stir it!" The somewhat frantic voice of Anne Barnes's nine-year old younger sister Emma filled the kitchen alongside the sound of clanging pans and running water. "The eggs gotta stir up with the flour and stuff!"

Anne, standing just outside the kitchen itself, turned her attention toward the skinny little girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room with the large mixing bowl in her lap. Taylor Hebert waved the wooden spoon that she had been digging through the concoction while announcing, "I put one egg in first, and then I mix it up. And then I put another egg in and then I mix it up too. It's my special way."

Huffing the way that only overly-important children can manage, Emma grabbed an open book off of the counter and took three quick steps before plopping herself down next to the other girl. "But the book says you gotta add them both together!" She declared while pointing to the recipe in question. "See? What if you put the eggs in separate and then it goes all bad and stuff cuz you did it different?"

"Whatcha think is gonna happen, Em?" Taylor asked before grabbing the second egg off the floor next to herself. "Ya think it's gonna blow up if we don't do it just the way the book says? It's okay if we do our own way. That way they're Emma and Taylor cookies, not 'Just The Way The Book Said Cookies.'"

Folding her arms skeptically, Anne's little sister demanded, "What if we was making a nuclear reactor, huh, Taylor? Would you put the eggs in separate if we was doing that?"

Calmly cracking the remaining egg before emptying its contents into the mixing bowl, Taylor replied, "I don't think they put eggs in nuclear reactors, Emma." Leaning close, she stopped. "Wait a sec."

"What?" Shifting onto her knees, Emma peered at the bowl. "What happened? See, I told you not to."

"Shhh, shhh, can you hear that?" Taylor leaned closer to the bowl, setting it carefully on the floor. "Shhh," she whispered even more quietly. "Tick... tick... tick... You hear it, right?"

Emma shook her head, frowning uncertainly. "Nuh uh." Following Taylor's lead, she leaned closer.

"Tick... tick..." Taylor repeated, waiting for another moment while Emma tried to lean closer to the bowl. At the last second, she threw herself forward to tackle the other girl while shouting, "BOOM!" Crying out loudly as she was tackled, Emma fell over with Taylor on top of her. Kicking and squealing, she started to laugh as soon as the other girl's fingers found her sides. "No, no, Taylor, noooo! No tickle, no, stop it, stop iiiiiit!" Laughing as much as she was protesting, the girl narrowly missed kicking the bowl with her foot. "Oh god, oh god, stop it, stop it! Stoooaaahhhh Taaaaaaylor, not fair!"

Finally letting up, Taylor rolled off of Emma before bouncing to her feet, arms held triumphantly into the air. "Buh-boom, sneak attack!" She began to do a ridiculously silly dance then. "Oh yeah, oh yeah."

"You are such a dork." Emma informed the girl from her place on the floor after catching her breath.

Stopping her dance, Taylor tilted her head at Emma while asking, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Without hesitating, Emma replied with absolute certainty, "Good thing. I don't want you to change, Taylor. Even if you do put the eggs in wrong. You can put them in one at a time if you want to."

The other girl brightened at that. "Can I put in three eggs instead of two?"

Emma shook her head, voice dry. "Don't push it."

Taking that as her cue, Anne finally knocked on the doorjamb. "Hey guys, am I allowed in yet?"

"Nuh uh!" Emma denied, twisting around to shake her head. "We get to do all of it except put it in the oven! Mom said we could do all the rest of it as long as we let you do the oven stuff, Anne."

Laughing, Anne kept her hands raised in a sign of peace. "Easy there, captain. No one's trying to mutiny on your ship. Just let me know when you guys are ready for the hot stuff, okay?"

Before Emma could respond, Taylor called, "Thanks, we will!"

Giving both girls a thumbs up, Anne stepped away from the kitchen. She left the girls to their cookie preparations, the sound of their last two sentences reaching her before she moved out of earshot.

"I wish I had a sister," Taylor lamented.

"You do!" Emma informed her. "Me. I'll be your sister, Taylor. We can be the best sisters forever."

"Hey," Anne called from the doorway. "What about me? Do I get to be best sister?"

"Ehhh," Emma frowned at her, considering. "Maybe. D'ya think you can earn it?"

* * *

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

Standing in her little sister's bedroom in the middle of the day, Anne stared at the unused bed. Her hand moved down to brush over the blanket while a long, low sigh escaped her.

Technically, Anne was supposed to be in class at that moment. But she had driven halfway to the school before turning around to come home. She couldn't do it. She couldn't go to school and pretend everything was okay. It hadn't been anywhere near okay for a very long time. The past couple of days were just an extension of the past few months, which themselves had been an extension of the past couple of years. Because everything, everything that had happened, came down to that afternoon almost two years earlier. That afternoon when Emma and their father had driven into that ABB trap.

Both had come home with little in the way of obvious external injuries aside from a few scrapes. Both had been broken by it in ways far more subtle. Their flesh was whole, but their minds were anything but. They had each, in their own way, been crippled by those events. Emma had become hard, had turned herself into the kind of person who didn't care about anyone else, who could laugh at the misfortune of others. The terror of what had nearly happened to her had destroyed the girl.

She should have seen that therapist. Their parents should have _made_ her go, instead of offering it and then not following through. They should have had it out with her time and time again, long before things got to be as bad as they had gotten. Emma had **desperately** needed real help.

But Emma wasn't the only one who had come out of that alley a broken person. Their father, in his own way, had been just as damaged. His inability to _help_ Emma, his complete helplessness in the face of the threats and insinuations that the ABB thugs had been hurling at her, had been more than he could take. The recognition that he had been utterly incapable of defending his youngest daughter, that if it had been up to him, he would have been forced to watch as they mutilated her or worse, had ruined him.

The truth was that he'd wanted so badly to prove that he could help Emma after all, that he'd made everything worse. He hadn't forced her to see the therapist because he didn't want her to associate him with making her relive what had happened. He didn't **want** her to remember how helpless he had been. He wanted to pretend that she really was getting past it, so he didn't push the therapy when he should have. And later on, as the next year and a half had continued, he'd ignored all the signs of her deterioration. He'd dismissed Emma's new obvious hatred of a girl that had been her best friend for so many years as the two of them simply growing up. He had ignored her mounting attitude and behavioral problems because he didn't want to believe the truth: that she was becoming an awful person and it was, in many ways, his own fault. And the more he ignored, the more he had to ignore.

Anne knew all that, because she wasn't as blind as some people thought. She paid attention. She had even talked to Taylor's father at the supermarket once, after everything had gone down. He hadn't said much, but from what he **did** say, and the other bits she had picked up on, Anne knew most of the story.

She'd wanted to help Emma, but she had no idea how. In these past few months, Anne had seen her sister spiral further and further. She wasn't the same person she had been before Taylor had ended up in the hospital, but she wasn't the person she had been two years earlier either. She was... different.

A massive part of that was their father's fault. Anne knew enough to understand that he had pulled strings to stop Emma and the other two from being punished for what they had done. And why not? It had been another way for him to show that he wasn't as helpless as he had been on that day. He may not have been able to protect Emma from the ABB, but he could protect her from her own consequences.

And now she was gone. Anne wasn't sure what had happened since her parents refused to talk about it, but she did know that Emma and their father had had yet another argument, and Emma hadn't come home that night. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she had set foot in their house.

But their father hadn't called the police. No, instead, he'd insisted that he could fix the problem, that he knew how to get through to Emma. He swore that he was going to take care of it.

Anne was terrified of what he could possibly be planning. Because so far, her father's ideas of how to get through to Emma had been pretty damn stupid.

Lost in her thoughts, Anne barely heard the front door open and shut. Eyes moving that way, she listened for a moment to what sounded like her father's voice. He was talking fast, in a way she recognized as being nervous. Then there was a lower, calmer voice that was obviously someone else.

Who the hell was he talking to? The other voice was male, so it wasn't their mother. Frowning, Anne hesitated. When the two voices drew nearer, she took a step back and put herself into Emma's closet, letting the door close most of the way while leaving a crack to see through. If pressed, she wouldn't have been able to say why she hid. It was an instinct that she couldn't explain.

"And you're sure this is premium product?" Her father was saying in his lawyer voice, though the way it shook slightly told Anne just how nervous the man really was. Whoever this guest of his was, it was someone important enough that Alan Barnes was almost petrified of him. Anne watched from her hiding place as her father came into view, standing right at the base of Emma's bed. He held a silver briefcase in one hand.

"I told you that it was," the second man spoke in a deep baritone, staying out of Anne's sight. "Do you believe I am lying?"

"No, no," her father assured the man quickly. "It's just that this is a lot of money, and I want to make sure I'm getting the very best. It **has** to be the best. Top tier level."

"It is the best that I have," the other man snapped. "Now I have indulged your request that we make this transfer within the bedroom of the child you have purchased the product for. It is sentimental and symbolic foolishness, but for I have done as you wished. We are here, and I have the product that you asked for. You will give me the money now, and I will give you what you have paid for and then leave. If you ask any more questions or delay any further, I will take the money for wasting my time and you will get nothing."

There was a moment of hesitation before Alan lifted the briefcase and held it out. A black-skinned hand took the case before extending a small glass vial. Her father grabbed it, and stood staring while the baritone voice wished him good day. The sound of departing footsteps followed by the opening and closing of the front door announced his departure. Still, Alan Barnes stood staring at the vial in his hand.

"Emma, baby," he said slowly. "Everything's going to be all right now. Everything's going to be fine."

Without thinking about what she was doing, Anne shoved the closet door open while demanding, "What the hell is that?"

Her father jumped, dropping the vial in the process. It fell unharmed to the carpeted floor. "Anne!" He blurted. "What are you—look what you almost made me do!" Taking a step forward, he bent for the vial.

Anne moved quicker. Lunging that way, she snatched the vial off the floor and looked at it. There was some kind of label on the glass with some writing on it, and a liquid inside that she couldn't identify. "What is this?"

"Anne, give it to me right now!" Alan snapped, his eyes wide. "You don't understand, that's for Emma. It can help her! It'll bring her back!"

Shaking her head back and forth, Anne blurted, "What the hell are you talking about? How is some kind of drug going to bring Emma home?"

"It's not a drug," Her father's head shook rapidly. "You don't understand, Anne. You just don't get it. That's... it's... it's power! It's power for Emma!" At Anne's disbelieving stare, he continued. "Don't you understand, baby? Emma's upset because of what happened, because she feels helpless again. That's why she's pushing us away. She's terrified that Soph—that someone is going to hurt her. So she's lashing out. But I can even the odds. I can give her power so she can protect herself from now on. That's what's in that vial. Powers. When she drinks it, she'll have them. She'll be a cape!"

"You... you're crazy." Anne realized aloud while staring at her father. "You're delusional. You can't get cape powers out of a vial. You can't buy them off the street like crack, Dad! Some guy sold you some shit in a bottle and you just want to get Emma to drink it?! You're insane!"

She pivoted on her heel, striding toward the door. "I'm throwing this shit down the sink."

"No!" Before Anne could get out of the room, her father lunged forward and caught her by the arm. "You can't do that! You don't understand, this will help her! It's what she needs, it's what she wants! This is how we can get Emma back to herself! I can help her this way!"

"Dad, let go!" Anne struggled with her father, but his grip was strong on her wrists. "Stop it! You can't give it to Emma! You can't!" They fought for control of the vial, and she shoved her thumb up against the lid to pop it open.

"You pour this out," Alan vowed while struggling to get his hand over the top of the vial, "and I will soak it back up again. You can't do anything to stop me from giving this to Emma, Anne."

Fighting for control of the vial for another moment, Anne closed her eyes briefly. She thought of her sister. She thought of that day all those years ago when Emma and Taylor had been making cookies. Half a decade later, and Emma's words came back to her. The other girl had asked if Anne thought she could earn the title of best sister.

"Yes." With the same word, she both corrected her father's claim that she couldn't stop him from giving the vial to Emma, and answered her sister from all those years earlier. "I can."

In one motion, Anne dipped her head down and opened her mouth. Twisting her hand hard, she poured the contents of the vial not onto the floor, but into her own mouth.

There was a scream of denial from her father, and then the world shattered around her.

Pain enveloped her, and then her mind was gone. She saw... things beyond her comprehension. Distorted shapes that made no sense, crystalline beings reaching an Earth-like planet and then...

Her eyes opened. The ceiling lay above her, and she was able to roll over and push herself up. In the corner of the room, her father was huddled, staring at her with wide eyes. His mouth moved, but the only sound that he made was a disbelieving, terrified whine.

Taking a step forward on legs that felt strangely unfamiliar, Anne caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she found herself facing the nightmare that had replaced her reflection.

She had grown several inches to just a hair under six feet, enough to rip through most of her clothes. What remained lay in shattered rags over her slightly taller figure. Her skin was covered in black metallic scales that glistened as if constantly damp. Between the obsidian scales were lines of glowing blue light. Her hands ended in long, sharp talons, and her feet had become clawed, like a bird of prey. Similarly, her face was slightly elongated, with a beak-like structure on the front, and eyes that were the same glowing blue as the lines between her scales.

Finally, on her back was not one, but two pairs of bat-like wings. The larger pair sat higher up on her shoulders, while the second set that were half that size began closer to her mid-section, with a bit of overlap between the two.

Her father was saying her name. He had found his feet by that point, and he repeated it, calling to her. Anne turned from the mirror. Her eyes found her father, and she felt rage, hot and almost uncontrollable well up inside of her.

She took three steps forward... then threw herself through the nearby window with a deafening crash. The glass shattered against her scales, and she unfurled both sets of wings.

In the next second, with her father's voice crying out after her, Anne was gone.


	8. Arc 8: War Crimes

**_Notes -_** _All righty! Here's the newest complete arc for everyone who wanted to read more, including the return of a character so utterly obscure that I wouldn't be surprised if no one remembered she existed. So that's fun. ;)_

 _My original web serial, Heretical Edge, has just completed its second arc and is currently hovering around 55 thousand words for anyone who was waiting until there was some decent length to read. It can be found, as noted before, at **ceruleanscrawling dot wordpress dot com**. Hop on board and enjoy another story. More action/urban fantasy/Harry Potter Meets Dresden Files Meets RWBY than superheroes in this case, but hey, variety is good! Updates for that take place Mondays and Fridays. _

_But for now, please enjoy this newest update for **this** particular story. _

**8-01 – Madison**

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

When I chose to become a hero (or at least try to be one), I had known that part of the job was saving people who were in danger. That was kind of the whole point, after all. Rescuing people was right there in the job description, bolded, italicized, and underlined. That wasn't the surprising part.

What _was_ kind of unexpected was _who_ I kept being put in a position to save. So far, in my short and rather uninspiring career as a cape, I'd been given the opportunity to directly rescue two girls. First there had been Sophia, a supposed hero whom I both hated and feared. Now there was Rune, an actual Nazi who had been responsible for keeping me imprisoned. Neither were exactly what I pictured when I thought of damsels in distress. It was like a Mario game centered around keeping Goombas alive. Y'know, if those Goombas happened to have really pretty eyes and a way of making their clothes look-

Rune screamed again, snapping me out of my frozen state. I had locked up, not knowing what to do in the face of Kaiser's sudden appearance and the other girl's ongoing punishment for speaking that name. My mind had been flailing. What was I supposed to do? Crystal was still in danger, and if I acted, in defense of one of my prison guards no less, they might just kill her and be done with it. But if I didn't, if I just let this happen, what did that make me? What kind of person would I become if I could just stand there and let someone be tortured like this, no matter _who_ they happened to be? I wasn't sure, but there was one thing I did know for certain: it wasn't a person that I had any intention of turning into.

After what felt like ages, but was closer to three seconds, I moved. My arm came up, and I focused on the water that I had absorbed from those showers. It burst forth like a fire hose, spraying from my hand directly at Kaiser. The man was thoroughly soaked, sputtering as he stumbled back. Over the sound of the water spraying him, I heard the man shout while his hand lifted that remote once more, "Idiot child, did you honestly believe that I limited my precautions only to my own people?"

I waited half a second for him to say that, then focused on the next part of my plan. My absorption field activated... over my own costume. It vanished, leaving me clad only in my underthings and the visor. **Immediately** after absorbing it, I expelled the costume once more. The uniform flew away from me as if it had been fired out of one of those tee shirt cannons, shooting across the room just as Kaiser's thumb pressed the button on his remote. The instant he did, I heard the crackle of electricity shoot through my abandoned costume... just before it crashed right into the utterly soaked man still standing in that puddle of water. Kaiser cried out and collapsed, spasming as much as Rune had been.

Realizing that I didn't have much time, I ran straight for where remote had been dropped. Rather than stop to pick it up, I just stretched my foot out over it as I passed. My field activated, absorbing the remote so that it couldn't be used again. Then I pivoted and went to the fallen girl, going to my knees beside her. The electrocution had stopped, but she was still twitching. "Rune! Are you all right?"

"Wha... what did you..." It was clearly taking the girl a moment to get herself oriented. She blinked several times from behind her mask, head tilting while she mumbled blearily, "Where're your clothes?"

A red flush took over my cheeks, and I coughed. "Kaiser weaponized them just like he did yours, so I weaponized them right back at him. Two can play at that game. Come on, we have to get out of here."

"Get out of here?" Rune was slowly coming back to herself, but it seemed to be taking an agonizingly long time considering the situation we were in. "But I live here. I'm... one of them." Her voice was shaken, and I was pretty sure it wasn't all from the electrocution. "This is my home."

After shooting a quick, almost frantic glance toward the fallen Kaiser, who was already starting to groan, I turned back to the girl and hissed, "No it isn't. Not if you don't want it to be. You were about to tell me something about Dinah Alcott, Rune. Something that Kaiser didn't want you to say, and he electrocuted you to stop it. He electrified your costume, Rune, before any of that happened. He was ready and waiting to torture you! So you have two options. You can run out of here on your own, or you can help me. But whatever you do, you _can't stay here._ They will hurt you. He might kill you. Do you understand? Help me or leave, but don't stay here. You can't stay here. I want your help, I **need** your help, but even if you can't do it, at least get the hell out of this place. You deserve better than this."

For a second, Rune said and did nothing. She simply gazed at me, the half-mask hiding the lower half of her face so I had no idea what kind of expression she had. Her eyes, however, stared through me.

Finally, her hand stretched out past me. I turned just in time to catch my no-longer electrified uniform as she floated it away from Kaiser. Rune's voice was hard. "You can go through the floor, right?"

I held the costume, blinking once before nodding. "Uh, sure, but-"

That was as far as I got before she threw her hand out again, brushing her fingers over the nearby desk before making a throwing gesture. I saw Kaiser, who had been sitting up, throw himself out of the room to avoid that desk as it flew at him. "Do it!" She shouted the order while flicking her hand again. The desk floated behind the door and then pushed it shut before settling itself against it to act as a barrier.

She'd barely done that before a large metal spike tore through the door and the desk from outside. The metal spread out from there, and I didn't hesitate any longer. Rolling over with my costume clutched in my arms, I activated my power. It absorbed the costume and cut through the floor beneath me, depositing chunks of it into my storage space. Within a couple of seconds, the field ate through the last of the floor, leaving a me-shaped hole that I fell through into the room below with a yelp.

I landed awkwardly, trying to catch myself but mostly failing. A second later, Rune dropped with considerably more grace beside me. "One more," she urged. "We have to go down one more floor."

Following her instructions, I used my power again. We went through that floor, and this time I was more prepared, rolling as I landed. Still, the floor was cement so it wasn't exactly a _soft_ arrival.

We were in some kind of basement storage area. As she dropped beside me, Rune ran her hand along the cement floor. A large chunk of it tore itself out of the ground and flew up through the hole so quickly it might as well have been shot out of a cannon. I heard a cry a second later as it hit someone.

Rune pointed past me. "That way, go." I opened my mouth to ask what we were doing, and she launched herself forward to shove me. "Don't chat about it, just go! Move!"

The girl had a point. I ran, trying not to think about how much I hoped that no one ever found out about the particular _specifics_ of this absurd escape considering I still hadn't had time to put my costume back on. Wearing my visor alongside my underthings, I probably looked **patently** ridiculous.

Rune made me keep running, not letting me slow down at all as we passed out of that room and into a hallway. She led me onward, directing me left or right. After about ten seconds of this, an alarm started to blare loudly, and she flinched. "Fucking camel's diarrhea shit! I was hoping we'd have more time. Move, move! Do not slow down, don't even look at me, just go! Left!"

I didn't know where she was trying to direct me to, but she was definitely insistent. I didn't have time to catch my breath. Skidding around the corner to the left as she directed, I found a wall ahead of us.

"Just go, use your power and go right through it!" Rune shouted. "Straight ahead, three rooms!"

Following her instructions, I used my power and Oh Yeah'd my way through the next several walls. I didn't bother paying attention to anything in these rooms. I was in to much of a hurry to even think about it. They were just a blur of random objects. There were no people down here as far as I could see.

Finally, in the third room, Rune shouted for me to stop. I almost fell over after skidding to a stop, breathing hard. "Why... are... we... here...?" I managed in between gasps for breath. Looking around, I saw that we were in what looked like a room full of computer servers. They were stacked high all along the wall in front of me.

Rather than answer right away, Rune ran along the length of the room, brushing her hand along the server stacks as she went. At the other end, she turned and made a firm shoving motion. Immediately, each of the servers yanked themselves off the floor, slammed into the opposite wall, then hit the ceiling, then the floor, and then all crashed into one another with a terrifying bang before falling into a heap.

The lights went out, leaving us in pitch darkness, and the alarm was silenced. After about six seconds of that, duller lights colored red slowly flickered to life. At the same time, there was a heavy whoosh sound, and a thick metal door slammed down into place over the regular door that had been at true the entrance of the room before. All down through the hallway, I could hear more of those doors slamming into place.

"What... did you just do?" I asked slowly while looking around. Fuck, what _did_ happen?

"Put your costume on," the other girl instructed. "So I can at least pretend to take you somewhat seriously." Groaning then, she put her hands over her face. "Fuck, shit, god damn it, cunt-weasel, what am I doing?! What the fuck. What the **fuck** did I do? Damn it, damn it, damn it." She was shaking.

Hurriedly pulling my costume on, I looked to Rune, hesitating only slightly before speaking. "You're doing the right thing. The only thing you could do after he attacked you."

"Right." Pivoting at those words, Rune started patting herself down. She ran her hands all along her costume, concentrated for a moment, then reached inside the collar and tugged out a small silver dot before throwing it onto the floor. A second later it was smashed beneath her foot.

"Stand still, let me do you." With those words that inexplicably made me blush, the girl stepped over and put her hands on my costume. She ran them down my side, obviously focusing on her power for a moment before giving me a shove around to face away from her. I felt her hand slip down to my waist, and she tugged something out before holding it up so I could see another of those silver dots. It joined its companion, first on the floor and then crushed beneath her foot.

"He'll have more than one remote," she explained shortly. "Probably how he heard our conversation too. Damn it, I'm a fucking retard. I'm a full-on mouth breathing dumb shit. I should've known. I should have fucking figured he'd do something like that. Fuck, god damn it."

Spinning toward me, she pointed to the broken servers. "Those controlled everything in this place. It's all broken, so the system just locked down everything by default. That's what that means." She pointed to the heavy metal door that had appeared. "The whole place is on lockdown. Kaiser could end it, except I destroyed the server there, so he can't. It's all manual now."

"So what does that mean?" I asked rather hesitantly, frowning at the other girl as I considered her words. She'd locked everything down, breaking the building's computer so that no one could end it.

"It means," she went on after squinting at me. "Wherever Kaiser was, the building just locked him into either the room or a twenty foot length of hallway between security doors. Same goes for everyone in the complex. It's all locked down, they're all trapped. The regular walls are just as reinforced behind the facade." She gestured to the simple looking plaster of the room around us. "Plus there's all the other security measures he's got installed in this place. It's a death trap for people that aren't authorized, and right now, **nobody's** authorized."

"I _thought_ those walls were pretty thick." I hesitated then before looking to her. "You really think he can't just break out. What about the giant twins, or Crusader's ghosts?"

"Crusader's not here," Rune replied. "He's with the cheerleader and Bakuda. As for Fenja and Menja, they can't grow big enough to easily tear through the doors before they end up crushing themselves in the confined space. They get fucking strong, but they have to grow to do it and there isn't enough room. At least I hope there isn't. I was kind of counting on that."

"Laserdream?" My eyes widened. "They're really not here in the building?"

"No," Rune shook her head while replying. "They're across the city."

I deflated, closing my eyes briefly. "He'll just call ahead. They'll move her. Or..." I trailed off, too terrified to finish the thought that had come to mind.

"No, he won't." Rune gave me a hard shove. "You think I'm an idiot? That's why I locked everything down, dumbass. See?" She lifted a phone from her robe to show me the screen where it indicated no connection or service. "Now the security just extended the communication blackout over _everyone._ No messages in or out, because I broke the server that kept all the exceptions to that rule. No one can communicate with the outside world until they get out of this building. And with your power..."

"We can get out faster than anyone," I realized, nodding. "Great, so let's go."

"Not so fast." She held up a hand. "Remember what I said before that shocking interruption?"

I paused, my worry for Crystal making me take a second. "Dinah Alcott? The mayor's niece?"

She nodded. "Girl has powers, and Kaiser's got her. He's keeping her here, inside the building. Trust me, his first priority is going to be moving her. He's going to send her away and we'll never find her again. The kid..." She hesitated. "He's using her. I'm getting her out."

"I'll help you," I said, trying to force my worry about Crystal to quiet for a moment. We had time. Not a _lot_ of time, granted, but time. The place was locked down and even with Kaiser's power it would take him a bit to break free. "We get to Dinah, get her out, then get to Laserdream before anything happens."

"Right, fine. I'll let you know where the cheerleader is as soon as we get the kid out of here," Rune agreed. "But we have to hurry the fuck up. We've got a whole god damn building full of people looking to put _both_ of us in the fucking ground. If Kaiser got the word out before I locked everything down, they're probably already teleporting more in as we speak."

"Teleporting more in?" I blinked. "So couldn't they just teleport out?"

"Doesn't work that way during a lockdown," she replied. "The whole idea is to be able to bring reinforcements in, but not let anyone escape. Sure, Kaiser's supposed to be able to override that and let people out, but since his command authority's been kind of... neutralized..." She gazed at the broken servers briefly. "He's just an ordinary grunt nobody like the rest of us, as far as the computer's concerned. If he got a message out before I blew the servers, we'll have reinforcements jumping in, but nobody can leave. At least, not easily."

"So... so you're really switching sides?" I asked, biting my lip as I looked at her.

Her eyes rolled. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. That much should be patently obvious. I'm a blithering idiot, and I'm probably going to die. But... I dunno. I don't know what I am, all right? All I know is that cocksucker electrocuted me for telling you the god damn name of the twelve-year old girl he's got locked up, so fuck him in the ass with the longest spike he ever made. The point is, fuck all if I know what comes next, but I'm not on **his** side. That means he's gonna try to get rid of me. Just like he's gonna try to get rid of you now that you're inconvenient. So we work together to get Dinah and get the hell out of here, got it?"

I still had so many questions. But it wasn't the right time. We were on a limited clock, and with every second that passed, our odds of rescuing Dinah and Crystal were getting lower.

"All right," I nodded and put my hand out. "We work together for now."

"Fantastic." The sarcasm was thick on Rune's voice. "I always thought Die Hard would've been better with more glittery sparkle unicorns."

I made myself brighten at that, straightening with a broad smile. "You too?"

"We are so going to die."

 **8-02 – Sophia**

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

"So you're not even really a cape?"

The next afternoon, about as soon as I had been able to get away from school and the authorities peering over my shoulder, I was sitting on the bench in Bryce's garage, watching as the girl that had saved our asses the day before meticulously took apart that gun she had been carrying around and cleaned the components. Her eyes weren't on her work, however, but on me instead.

I wasn't sure how the rest of the day had gone for the others. Right after the mall situation, I'd had to split to meet up with the rest of the Wards for training before anyone got suspicious. Apparently the girl that called herself Muse had let it slip that she needed to crash somewhere, and Bryce had talked her into using the garage. Now, we were trying to figure out what to do next.

"Yeah," Bryce spoke up from the other side of the garage where he and Aisha had been fiddling with something since I walked in fifteen minutes earlier. "But she's a badass. You should've seen how she took out those fucks that tried to jump me when we met. She's like Black Girl Jackie Chan."

From where she was standing, Aisha cackled in amusement. "Dude, that was like... racist, then sexist, then back to racist again. Bravo. You deserve some kind of award or something."

Ignoring them, I shrugged at Muse. "Bryce is the tinker. I just wear his stuff and use it in the field."

"But no one knows that you're not the one building it?" The girl pressed as she began to put the pieces of the gun back together. "They think you're the tinker, not a normal person." Before Bryce could say anything else, she amended, "A _skilled_ normal person. They think you're the cape."

I shrugged. "We're still new. I dunno if anyone even knows who the hell we are yet or what we call ourselves. But yeah, that's the idea. Bryce stays safe, I get to use the toys and go out to beat up the worthless fucks that think they can do whatever they want. It's a win-win situation."

"What about you?" Aisha had abandoned the project that she and Bryce had been futzing with, and stood there staring at the older chick. "Who're you running away from?"

If I hadn't been watching for it, I might have missed Muse's very slight flinch. She hardly missed a beat, though compared to the rest of the reactions she'd been giving us, it was practically a scream. She spoke calmly, but it was that sort of forced calm that came when the person was trying very, very hard not to pretend they weren't freaked out. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh please," Aisha rolled her eyes. "You won't tell us your real name, your hair is obviously dyed, you keep putting your hand up to brush it off your shoulders even though it's barely long enough to run your hands through so it was obviously cut recently after being longer most of the time, you've been watching that door like the Simurgh is gonna jump through it any second, and you've got powers. Mind control powers, even. If you're not on the run, I'll lick this garage floor clean."

After everyone in the room took a moment to make a face at those words, Muse let out a long, low sigh. She set down the gun parts and looked back over to see all of us watching her. "Fine, if it means sparing you from whatever diseases you'd get from doing something that disgusting, I'll tell you a couple things. Let's get this straight though, I'm not telling you my real name or who I'm really running from. Just get that out of your head right now. Trust me, you don't want to know. It's too dangerous."

"We're already in danger," Bryce pointed out. "Look at the stuff we're doing. We're going after the Empire Eighty-Eight. We're gonna take them the fuck down. That's not exactly kiddie stuff, you know."

"It is compared to what I'm talking about," Muse retorted flatly. "I'm not telling you everything. That's the end of it. What I will say is that yes, I am hiding out from some really bad people who can use the authorities to get at me. I'm not planning on staying here very long, just enough to catch my breath."

"So you've been running from them for a long time, huh?" Bryce carefully set down the screwdriver he'd been holding, and I saw a familiar look in his eyes as he watched the older girl. It reminded me of the look he'd had when he had first come up with the idea for our little partnership.

"For awhile," Muse replied with obvious suspicion. "Why, what's it to you? Like I said, I'm not going to stick around for very long. Thanks for the sleeping bag and all, but it's too dangerous."

"Sure," Bryce nodded. "Too dangerous for you. But maybe it's not too dangerous for not-you."

Realizing where he was going, I groaned. "Seriously? Are you really playing the recruiting game?"

Muse was squinting at both of us while Aisha snickered in the background, apparently having figured out Bryce's angle as well. "What the hell are you talking about, kid? Not-me?"

Grinning, Bryce ignored my warning look. "Sure. Like you figured out, Sophia's pretending to be a cape by running around with the stuff I design. What if you go around pretending to be a cape too?"

"But I am a cape," Muse started to say before amending. "Okay, not a real cape, but a parahuman."

"Uh huh," Bryce's grin had grown to Cheshire proportions. "But what if you pretended to be a _different_ parahuman?" In response to the girl's flat stare, he continued. "See, Sophia may only be pretending to be a cape, but what if she really was one? What if she had powers and just hid them. She could still use my stuff, and still make people think she was a tinker. Then if she ever got in trouble, she could use her _real_ powers to get out of it. The powers that no one knew she had because they think she's a tinker."

It wasn't easy, but I managed to maintain a straight face through this entirely hypothetical suggestion.

The boy went on. "So why don't you do something like that? You use my stuff to look like a different cape. That way, if anyone does come looking for the real you, the pretend-you can find out ahead of time. I mean, I'm sure they know what your real powers are. If you start going out and acting like you have completely different powers, isn't that a better way of hiding than just running?"

Muse was silent for a few seconds. I could tell she was actually considering what the kid was saying. When she finally spoke, her words were slow. "I'm pretty sure there's a really good argument against what you're talking about, but I can't think of one. Except for the fact that if they do figure out where and who I am, it puts you guys in way too much danger. I can't do that. Trust me, you don't want me."

"Just give it a shot for a little bit," Bryce needled. "I can make you something to approximate different powers. If it doesn't fool them or you wanna move on later anyway, whatever. You can take it with you. Hell, isn't that better in the long run too? It gives you another weapon to use against whoever you're running from. They come after you thinking they have to protect themselves against one power, and you've got something else to throw at them. Something besides a pistol." He nodded pointedly to the disassembled weapon. "You stay until it's not working, then you leave with the stuff I can make you. In the meantime, for as long as you can, you help us take on the Empire. I get an excuse to tinker some more, you get some new toys, the team gets another member to fight those racist fucks. We all benefit."

Once again, there was silence from the girl. She looked to me. "You've been quiet, what do you think?"

Of course she had to ask me. I grimaced, trying to think about what someone who wasn't leading two separate cape lives would say. Part of me was worried that fooling this girl would be harder than fooling Bryce and Aisha, that this Muse chick would figure out that I was on two different teams.

But the thing was, Bryce wasn't actually wrong. He was an immature brat sometimes... okay, a lot of the time, but in this particular case, it seemed like he'd thought out his answer. And something told me we might need the help, considering the fact that the ABB had apparently gone on a recruiting spree.

And wasn't **that** a weird fucking thought. I needed help? I wanted to reject the entire concept immediately. Who the fuck was in my head with that bullshit? Shadow Stalker didn't need help. She didn't need a god damn team full of whiners and hand-holding to do her job. All she needed was a bad guy to deal with and an hour alone to remind him why he was a worthless sack of shit.

I opened my mouth to respond, to tell the girl we didn't need her. It was too risky, too close to getting into secrets that I didn't want uncovered. I started to speak, but what I said was not the conclusion that I thought I'd come to. "Kid makes sense. You can always leave later if you don't like how it goes."

Mastered? The thought briefly crossed my mind, but no. That would have been the easy explanation. The truth was that... it was me. I knew that every thought I'd had about why it was a bad idea was true... for Shadow Stalker. For her, me... whatever, it was a horrible plan. But I **wasn't** Shadow Stalker right then. I was Hinder, and Hinder had _started_ with a team. Fuck, Hinder had worked with a partner from the beginning. Maybe it was dumb and I'd regret it, but for a moment, I wanted to think like a girl that had worked with her team, who didn't have to deal with any of this other bullshit. I wanted to think like this fictional version of me who hadn't fucked up so badly that the only people in my life that would even talk to me were the ones that didn't know anything about me. Because right now, when these three looked at me for advice and my opinion, they weren't glaring or accusing me. They were just... asking.

Shaking off those thoughts, I waved a hand dismissively. "But do whatever you want, I don't care."

After watching me for a few seconds in silence, Muse finally let out a long sigh. "I'll think about it."

"Sweet! We are gonna be the best team ever." Bryce turned his attention my way then. "But uhh, while she's thinking about it, we need to find someplace else to set up. We need a secret lair."

I blinked at that. "I thought that's what this was." I waved a hand to indicate the garage around us.

Bryce's eyes rolled. "I like the idea of having a hot girl practically sleeping under my bed, but-"

"Trust me, kid," Muse interrupted. "If I had to hide in your room, you'd be the one under the bed."

"The **point** is..." Bryce picked up a bit of plastic and started to fiddle with it. "We need some place where my parents aren't gonna walk in on us. It was fine when it was just the two of us and you were here once a day while they were still... while they were focused on the funeral. But now they're starting to pay attention. My dad might wander out here. And I'd like to be able to leave my stuff lying around."

"New place, got it." I cracked my neck to one side. "I'll keep my eyes open." My phone beeped then. I glanced down at it, trying not to groan at the message there. It was from Pig-out to all the Wards, telling me that there was a job for us and to get to the headquarters immediately.

"Gotta go," I tucked the phone away and straightened up. The last thing I wanted to do was give that fat bitch any reason to pay attention to where I was and what I was doing when she sent that message.

"Me too, bro's taking me for pizza, suckers." Aisha started to grab her bag only to stop as her own phone went off. She took it from her pocket, frowned hard, and shoved the phone away. "Never mind." That scowl remained for a few seconds before she shook it off. "Fuck, I still want pizza. Who's in?"

I left the three of them there with a promise to think about what Bryce had asked for. A new place to set up for the three-maybe-four of us? A place he could tinker without needing to hide his toys from the eyes of his parents. I wasn't sure where we could find something like that, but it shouldn't be too hard.

After all, this was Brockton Bay. Secret lairs were probably almost as common as 7-11's.

* * *

"Chasing down random Empire thugs?" I asked awhile later, after reaching the PRT building and getting briefed along with the rest of the Wards. "Why was that considered important enough to drag us all in on a red alert, priority call?"

"Because I said it was, Shadow Stalker," Piggy-fat-fuck retorted darkly. She glared at me. "If you have a problem with that, I can find more chores for you to do around here. Something more suited to you."

My face burned under my mask. Impulsively, my mouth opened to tell the bitch to go fuck herself, that I'd just been asking a simple god damn question. But I stopped before any sound came out. I hesitated, thinking it through for a second. Then I forced it down. I took the words that I wanted to say and I pushed them out of my mind. One at a time, I tamed that impulse. "No. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" She just had to push one more time. "Because if you object to being called in to do the job that you signed up for, we can find plenty of other uses for you right here in the building."

The rage that I had been trying, honestly **trying** to quell boiled up in me. I lifted a hand, a threat on my lips. But before I could make more than the initial sound, another hand grabbed my arm and shoved it down. Gallant, the idiot, spoke up loudly. "We're good, ma'am. Is there anything else you _can_ tell us?"

The bitch squinted, clearly waiting for me to do something else. When the only thing I did was yank my arm away from Gallant's grip and step away from him, she almost looked disappointed while answering him. "All I can tell you is that there is a situation that was brought to us by the Brockton Bay Brigade that requires we work together. We believe that the Empire is calling in many of its troops to deal with a situation inside one of their primary headquarters. They are doing this by making their way to various teleportation devices based throughout the city. Armsmaster believes that he can use these devices to locate the area the troops are being teleported to, but we must locate more of them. That's where you come in. Search the Empire's territory, find these teleportation devices, and let the Protectorate know where they are. Is that understood?"

While she was talking, I glanced toward that lying criminal bastard at the end of the row. Grue, because **fuck** if I was ever going to think of him as Veil, stood there as if he actually belonged. He hadn't said a word since this briefing had started, but when I looked at him, he turned as if sensing my glare and looked toward me. There was no expression on his face, so I had no idea what he was thinking. He just stared back at me, utterly impassive. It was like he was waiting to see what I did next.

I flipped him off and turned away just as Pig-out dismissed us to get dressed and go. Pivoting on my heel then, I walked away without saying a word to her.

Vista, however, I did talk to since the two of us were going into the locker room together to get changed. "What do you think this big secret thing the Brigade's dealing with is, huh, Squirt?"

She didn't answer. Silently, the girl started changing into her costume, not even looking at me.

I let that go for a few moments while changing into the Shadow Stalker uniform, then spoke again. Maybe it was stupid, but I was annoyed. I didn't take being ignored well. "Maybe you should use the bambi eyes on Gallant. See if he'll throw you a scrap and get some information out of his real girlfriend."

Fuck. That was a low blow. I knew it even as I said it, but it still came spilling out anyway.

Vista's locker slammed shut and she turned to glare at me, fury in her eyes while she held that visor of hers in one hand without putting it on yet. "Let's get one thing straight," she started flatly. "I don't care what you say. I don't care what you _think._ You don't deserve to be here. You don't deserve to wear that costume. You don't deserve to be on this team. You're a bully, Sophia. You're a bitch. You're a coward that picks on people that can't fight back. You think you're some awesome, terrible badass? You're a joke. Real heroes stick up for the helpless. You prey on them. But you're not even a villain. You're not brave enough to be a villain. They at least fight other capes. You... you just pick on some innocent girl, ruin her life. And then you have the nerve to pretend it doesn't matter? Fuck you. And fuck the people that won't put you where you belong."

She walked out of the room before I could respond, the door slamming after her.

 **8-03 – Emma**

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

Standing in front of my family's house the day after the failed attempt to rescue Madison and her family, I spoke through gritted teeth. "You know, you really didn't have to come with me."

I had only slept for a few hours. The nightmare about what might be happening to Madison and her family kept me awake. But there was nothing I could do. The authorities had Skidmark, and Lisa had assured me that there was nothing else to get out of him anyway. The rest of the Merchants were just plain out of our reach. She'd promised to reach out to this mysterious boss and see if he could give us any help, but I wasn't really expecting much. So for now, all I could do was take care of this other problem.

Arms stretched lazily above his head Alec drawled, "Oh, I know. But after that blow-up you had with your dad yesterday, there's no way in hell I'm missing this. Sounds too damn interesting. Besides, I've already watched everything decent on my DVR so I'm bored. Entertain me, Squirrel."

I turned a hard scowl at him. "I'm so glad you're enjoying my family drama, Alec."

The glare didn't even draw so much as a wince. He just met my gaze and shrugged. "Hey, as long as your family drama ends with few enough corpses to count on one hand, it's pretty novel to me."

Before I could respond to that, the front door of the house flew open with a bang, and my father came charging out. He practically tripped down the stairs in his rush. "Emma!" Flying across the grass, he came straight for me. "I knew, I knew you'd come back. I knew you would." The expression on my father's face actually scared me a little bit. He looked half-panicked, his features strangely gaunt considering I hadn't been gone that long. There was a fear and desperation in his eyes that reminded me of what little I'd seen about drug addicts. He wasn't thinking clearly. I wondered if he'd been drinking.

He came for me, and I took a step back, holding up both hands to stop him. "No, I didn't. I'm not back."

Stopping there, my father breathed hard. Now that he was close enough, I could tell he really _had_ been drinking. The stench of it was thick on the air. God, what did he do, bathe in a distillery? "Emma..." His voice slurred somewhat until he cleared his throat hard. "Yo-you need to come-" He coughed. "Come inside. Come inside and we'll... we'll talk about things. We'll figure it out."

With each word, more of that alcohol scent washed over me. Fuck, did mom and Anne know he was like this? "No," I said flatly. "I just want to talk to Anne. Where is she? I tried calling, but she didn't answer." I'd borrowed one of Lisa's untraceable disposable phones and dialed my sister's phone from memory. Which had itself taken awhile since I barely paid attention to anyone's actual phone number.

"Anne is..." Dad flinched, mouth opening and then closing. "She's out looking for you. She's worried about you, Emma. Do you have any idea what you're putting this family through? Do you care how sick your mom and sister are right now, just thinking about what might happen to you or where you might be? Your actions have consequences, Emma. I thought you figured that out by now."

Those words, coming from him, made me bristle angrily. Did he really think he could just say something like that and... I glowered, shaking my head at him. "I'll just call Anne later then."

"She doesn't want to talk to you over the phone, Emma," Dad informed me flatly. "She wants to talk to you in person, in this house, in your _**home**_ where you belong. She won't answer until you act like a part of this family." There was something in his voice, something wrong about what he was saying.

I shook that off. "Damn it, just stop it. I just came to tell you to leave me alone. Don't call the cops. Don't call the school. Don't do anything. I need space and time away from you. Got it? I'll go to my classes, I'll do my probation, I'll do all of that. I just won't be **here.** I can't. I can't be around you. I won't. So I'm going to stay with my friend," I nodded toward Alec. "And you leave me alone."

Seeming to notice Alec for the first time when I nodded at him, my father straightened. "Who're you?"

"I told you already, he's my friend," I repeated flatly, trying to draw my father's focus back to me.

Before I knew what was happening, Alec had one arm around my waist. "Oh yeah," he agreed in a slow, easy tone that we both knew was purposefully aggravating. "We're _real_ good friends." His tone turned pointed, and he actually winked while squeezing his arm around me a little tighter.

"Oh my god," I got out while my dad's eyes widened. He actually started to throw a punch before I shoved myself in front of Alec, not-so-gently elbowing him in the stomach. "Stop it! It's not like that. Just... stop. Look, it's not like that, dad. It's not. But I am staying at his place. It's okay."

Drawing himself straight up, my father gave me the look I had seen so many times growing up. It was the look that ended discussions, that sent me to my room and brooked absolutely no more arguments. "Emma, you are not going anywhere except inside this house. You and I are going to sit down and decide where to go from here. We can talk about how to get around this, but you live **here.** You are a part of this family, and you will obey our rules. You do as you're told, go inside, and we'll talk."

I took in a long breath, let it out, and faced him. "No." This was different than our last confrontation. I was still angry, but it was a cold anger. I'd had time to think, to figure out what I needed to do. "We're not discussing anything, and I'm not going inside. I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen. If you prefer, I can talk louder and we can see what the neighbors think about everything that's going on."

Eyes widening at that, Dad's head shook rapidly. "Emma, listen to me-"

"No!" I finally raised my voice. "No, damn it, **you** listen. Shut the hell up and listen to me, Dad. Just listen, because this is really fucking important." I met his gaze, my body shaking for a few seconds until I got it under control. This was too big to let my anger take over. I couldn't shout at him, I couldn't scream and carry on the way I wanted to. I had to be cold. Cold. I had to do this right, to make sure he understood the full consequences of what I was talking about. He had to know what he was risking.

My outburst had finally shocked my father into silence for the moment, so I pressed on quickly. "I told you already, I'm fine. I'm not staying here. I'm staying at a friend's house, but I'll still go to school. Like I said while you weren't listening, I'll go to school, I'll go to probation, I'll do everything I'm supposed to do... except live here. I need you to leave me alone. No calling the cops, no calling the school, no contacting any authorities, no child protection services, nothing. Just leave me alone. Don't try to contact me, don't send anyone after me, don't do anything. Let me figure this out on my own."

Dad's mouth was opening, but I pressed on over any objections he was trying to raise. I had to get through this. "That's what you're going to do. If you don't, if you try to stop me, if you call the police, if you do anything to try to make me come here again, I will make absolutely sure you regret it."

My voice, my attitude, they were reminding me too much of before the locker. I felt sick inside, but I had to press on. I had to get this out, or things would be worse. "If you push me on this, I'll tell the truth, Dad. I will tell everyone what I did, what we did, and what happened to Taylor. All of it."

His mouth fell open and his head shook. "You can't, baby. You can't do that. It wouldn't do any good anyway. The court's decided already, the judgment is over. Part of that agreement is keeping quiet. You know that. It's over already. There's nothing you could tell the police that they could do-"

"I didn't say anything about the cops," I replied flatly, in as hard a tone of voice as I could. "I'm not talking about the police, Dad. I'm talking about the media. I'm talking about the news. I'm talking about the public. I'm talking about everyone in this fucking city that doesn't have a vested interest in protecting their own asses while throwing Taylor and her father under the bus!"

My voice had risen, and I tamed it back down to a cold, empty tone. "If you push me on this, I will put it online, I will go to the news, I will tell everyone I can find, _**everyone**_ about everything. I will tell them what I did, what all of us did. I'll tell them about Sophia, about the deal with the PRT, about Taylor's coma, about all of it. Everything, Dad. I will tell them everything. How do you think your career would look after that came out? That firm of yours that you're so fucking obsessed with, how would they like having that kind of public image? How do you think the Protectorate would react? Do you wanna take a guess at how many of your precious colleges would want me after that gets out?

Alec, who clearly had no idea what I was talking about, still decided to input, "Community college probably wouldn't care too much. And you could still get plenty of jobs. College is pretty overrated. Hot girl like you, there's plenty of stuff out there. You'd probably be fine."

"Alec," I turned to scowl at the unrepentant boy once more, as if it would do any good. "Stop helping."

Returning my attention to my father then, I held my hand up. "That's the deal, Dad. That's it. You push me, you try to drag me back, you send anyone after me, and I go nuclear. I will ruin my life, your career, the PRT, the school, I will ruin everyone in this fucking town who so much as looked at Taylor cross-eyed. I will destroy everything if you make me. Because here's the deal. Right now, I still think there's ways that I can help Taylor. There's ways I can make up for what I did. But if you try to stop me, if you try to take that away from me, I will do the only thing I have left. I will destroy everyone involved. I will ruin it, I will throw it all away, every last bit of it. You don't get to win this time, Dad. You leave me alone and let me do what I need to do, or I will burn everything to the ground. Because let's be clear about this, you don't care about me. You don't care about _**me.**_ You care about who you want me to be, who you wish I was. You care about how what I do and what happens to me affects this family. If you cared about _**me,**_ you would've listened to me. You would have paid attention when I tried to tell you that you were making things worse. You would have let me tell the truth. Now... now I'm not giving you the choice anymore. I'm leaving. I'm going to figure this out on my own, without you."

"You do that," Dad's voice was weak. "And you'll ruin this family, Emma. Would you really do that?"

"I ruined my best friend's life." I informed him as coldly as I could manage, trying to contain my own shudders. "She was practically as much of a sister to me as Anne is, and I destroyed her. Do you really think I'd hesitate to do the same to the people that threw her under the bus _after_ I tried to help her?"

For the second time in as many days, I turned on my heel and left my father behind. This time, I walked rather than ran. "Leave me alone," I called to him. "Or I swear to God, I will ruin all our lives."

Alec said something else to my father that made him bellow in anger, then jogged to catch up with me.

"What did you say to him?" I started to ask, then shook my head when Alec's mouth opened and thoughts of everything he _might_ have said flooded my mind. "Never mind. I really don't want to know."

We walked down the sidewalk in silence for a minute until Alec asked, "So, who's Sophia?"

"You ready to talk all about your sister?" I retorted flatly, glancing sidelong at him.

He paused, then dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Touche. Not talking about it. But you've got secrets, Squirrel. PRT and Protectorate? Someone named Sophia. You just became a lot less boring."

I was spared from having to respond to that by the sound of police sirens. A lot of police sirens. Eyes widening, I looked up just in time to see five different cop cars go screaming right past us, followed moments later by another squad cars and a pair of armored PRT vans, sirens blaring.

"What the hell?" I stared after the rapidly departing vehicles. "What happened?"

"Beats me," Alec replied. "But sounds like someone's having even more fun than we are."

The phone that I had borrowed from Tattletale buzzed in my pocket. I dug it out, glancing at the screen before answering. "Yeah?"

It was Lisa. "Are you seeing this?"

I blinked at the question. "You mean all the cops? Yeah, what's going on?"

"It's a warzone out there," she replied. "Something's going on with the Empire. I'm not sure what, but the Brigade pried some of them out from whatever hole they were hiding in. Then the Wards got involved. Then Lung's new ABB group showed up, so the Protectorate jumped in. Then Coil's mercs hit them from the other side. Now it's complete free-for-all. You guys need to get off the streets right now."

My mouth was hanging open. A war between the Empire, the Brigade, the Wards, the Protectorate, the ABB, and Coil's mercenaries? What the _**hell**_ prompted that?

"We'll be right there," I promised. "Thanks for the warning." Then I disconnected and looked toward Alec. "Come on, we've gotta get back fast." I told him what Lisa had told me.

He whistled. "Damn. We're not jumping into that clusterfuck are we?"

Part of me almost wanted to. After how badly I'd failed at finding Madison and her parents, I was almost desperate to contribute _**somehow.**_ But even I knew that we'd be worthless in a brawl like that.

"Hell no," I shook my head. "We're laying low. Let's get out of here."

"Works for me," Alec replied, already walking. "I can think of a lot of things to do if you wanna be quarantined together."

* * *

An hour later, I stared into Lisa's eyes. "I should have known you weren't really my friend. How long were you planning on this one, Judas? From the start, or did I just become too much of a liability?"

Lisa just smirked at me. "Oh please. You were practically begging for it. You wanted me to take advantage of you. I mean honestly, leaving yourself that vulnerable? Showing that much weakness? If I didn't stab you in the back, someone else would have. You're not cut out for this and you know it."

The two of us stared at one another for another long few seconds before Lisa used a single finger to flick one of my tokens over and off of the map of North America. "I mean honestly, using only one rookie Protectorate squad to defend Maine? Amateur move. That was your primary port state."

I rolled my eyes while grabbing the token that she had tipped over to illustrate its loss. "I thought it was safe to move on Tyler because you said we were allies. I thought _you_ were watching my back."

"There are no long term allies in Capes And Consequences," Lisa informed me while counting out three tokens of her own, each representing a separate team of capes that she had just taken over Maine with. "Just temporary alliances of convenience."

The game that we were playing was basically about a civil war erupting among all the capes in North America. It was sort of like Risk, with cape teams in place of armies and their various strengths and weaknesses detailed on cards that came with the tokens. It could get really involved and complicated.

When two opposing cape teams fought, you were supposed to compare the information on the cards for each team. Each card listen every type of power category that team had. Blaster, stranger, changer, and so on, with a number between one and ten to show how powerful that team was in that category. The player that was attacking would state what power category they were using to attack with and the number they had, like shaker seven. Then the defender had to choose one of his own power categories that either matched or beat that number. If he couldn't, he had to use more than one and combine them. Using a power category subtracted that amount from the battle. For example, if someone attacked with a shaker seven, the defender could use a changer eight. That would remove the attacker's shaker category, and leave the defender with a changer one to use later. Then if the attacker subsequently used blaster five, the defender could use their stranger four and their remaining changer one to meet that, removing the attacker's blaster five, and the defender's stranger four and the last of their changer category. Each power type was strong against certain categories while weak against others. The winner of the battle was the person whose team still had ranks left in their power categories.

On the other side of the table, Tyler raised both hands. "Hey, what's that about the two of you planning on ganging up on me?" She paused then, head tilting as she looked to Lisa, then to me and licked her lips. "You know what? I withdraw the objection. Proceed with the ganging."

Flushing, I threw the game token at her. "There's no ganging. Lisa already nixed that. We're not allies."

"Aww." Tyler pouted for a moment before grinning. "That's okay, I can handle just you, sweetness."

"This is dumb," Rachel complained. "Why are we doing this?"

"Dumb?" I looked to her. "Rachel, you're doing almost as well as Lisa. You control fifteen states. If she didn't have all of Canada, you'd be pretty much on the same footing."

She shrugged at that. "It's still dumb."

"Squirrel thinks playing games is gonna teach us to play nice with each other," Alec informed her while taking his own turn to move some of his forces out of the four states that he still owned.

"I just think we should spend time together," I replied a bit defensively, feeling my cheeks flush. "Besides, we can't go outside while everyone is being completely insane." Glancing toward Lisa, I added, "Anything from this mysterious boss you won't tell us anything else about?"

She just shook her head. "He said to sit tight until he calls. Things are still a mess out there."

I met her gaze once more. "I guess that means he's too busy to look for the rest of the Merchants."

A long sigh escaped Lisa, and she looked regretful. "I don't think it's much of a priority for him. There are other things on his mind right now.

I didn't respond. Looking away, I closed my eyes and tried not to shudder. _Madison,_ I thought to myself. _Please be safe. Wherever you are... please be okay._

 _Please._

 **8-04 – Madison**

I was most definitely not okay. I was stuck in the bottom of one of the city's most notorious villain's secure headquarters, surrounded by a veritable army of pissed off and no doubt extremely trigger-happy enemies. Meanwhile, the lives of two girls, one an innocent child and the other one of my new teammates, were dependent on how well I could work alongside one of my former captors.

I wasn't, for the moment, letting myself dwell too much on the possibility of running into my brother on the other side of this conflict. If I saw Trevor, I didn't know what I was going to do. Part of me was afraid that I would freeze up entirely, while the other part was worried that I'd start hitting the stupid son of a bitch and never stop. I was afraid of running into him and I was equally afraid of _not_ running into him. If I didn't find that jackass before getting out of here, what was I going to tell Mom and Dad?

"You scared?" Rune asked as the two of us stood next to one of the lowered security walls that blocked off this part of the corridor. She had a hand pressed against it while her eyes looked toward me.

"Yup." I nodded seriously. "But then, I've been terrified pretty much since I ended up here. You?"

"Nah, I..." The other girl stopped and went silent for a few seconds before sighing. "Fuck it, yeah. I've seen what these guys can do, what they like to do to people that piss them off. It's not a game. You realize that, right? We mess this up, and dying is pretty much the best we can expect."

"Well then." I took in a breath and let it out again before continuing. "Let's not mess it up."

With that, I activated my field and leapt straight toward the security wall. A hole opened up around me, and I passed through as if the wall wasn't there. Landing in the longer stretch of corridor beyond, I went down to one knee and let my field rest for a moment while taking in the sight in front of me.

Four Empire goons stood there, where they had been trapped when the walls came down and the security system was locked out. Each were dressed in what looked like corporate security suits, and they held actual assault rifles. My sudden appearance drew their attention immediately, and they spun with their weapons raised. Clearly recognizing me immediately, I saw them take aim.

In the next second, the remaining part of the wall that I hadn't put a hole through tore itself loose and went flying straight at the men. The hole I had made meant that Rune was able to aim the flying wall well enough to crash into all four of them, bowling the men over before they could open fire.

Taking that chance, I sprang back to my feet and sprinted forward. Two of the men were down and motionless, the wall having hit them solidly enough to end their resistance. The other two had been clipped less solidly and were struggling to get up, shouting at one another about reinforcements.

"Aww, boys," I found myself speaking without thinking as my hands grabbed for the barrels of their rifles. With a quick zap of my field, the weapons were gone. "I know making big, strong, well-trained and heavily armed Aryan soldiers of war fight a couple of little girls isn't a particularly _fair_ fight, but you really should throw your all into it before calling for help. Who knows, you could get lucky."

One of the men lashed out with a kick. I tried to twist away, but part of it clipped me in the side, sending a shock of pain through me as I was knocked to the floor. Grimacing, I rolled over, looked up, and sent the piece of wall I had absorbed flying out to smack the man right in the face.

Meanwhile, Rune had literally wrapped her larger chunk of wall around the remaining man and sent him careening back the way we had come with a scream. I doubted he'd get out of it any time soon.

"Up, up, up," she chanted, grabbing me by the arm to haul me back to my feet. "Go, no time!"

Together, the two of us rushed for the next security wall and prepared to do the same thing. This was the problem. Though I could easily go through all of these walls as if they weren't there, we had no way of knowing what was on the other side of those walls. There could be nothing, there could be soldiers, there could even be some of the Empire capes. We were running blind, and the only thing we knew was that Kaiser would be trying to get to Dinah too. Rune hadn't explained everything, but she did say enough to make it clear how important that girl was to his plans. He would be working to secure her.

The next bit of corridor was empty, and then we were at a three-way intersection with walls sealing off each direction. I turned in a circle to look at each way we could go before turning to the other girl.

She didn't hesitate, lifting her hand to point to each wall in turn. "Stairway, medical supplies, training center. We want the stairs-wait-no. You can go up through the floor. Training center. It's quicker."

Taking the girl at her word, I went through that wall and into the room beyond. The second I did, however, a horrible pain went through my scalp as my hair was caught in an iron grip. I yelped, then found myself thrown to the floor with enough force to almost knock the wind out of me.

Stormtiger. I recognized the man in the distinctive white tiger mask just before he drove his fist down toward my prone form, the tell-tale sign of the claws made of condensed air formed around it. On its way down, he released the air in an explosive blast of force meant to tear through my helpless body.

At the last second, the man was knocked off balance by the wall. He stumbled sideways, that blast of hard air cutting through the floor about a foot to my left. Rune was through the opening, hand outstretched to batter her former teammate with the chunk of wall that she had ripped out.

Unfortunately, in the process of that trouncing, she didn't notice the much larger man with the shirtless torso covered in Aryan pride tattoos, wearing one of those stupid wrestler masks. Logi, the Empire's pyrokinetic. He was flanked by half a dozen random thugs, all of whom were focused on Rune.

"Down!" My shout mixed with the bellow from Logi himself as he roared for the men to fire.

The sound was probably the most terrifying thing I'd ever hard. It was like hell itself had opened up, spitting out bullets and literal fire as those six Empire soldiers and the pyromaniac let loose on the spot where Rune was standing. My heart almost tore itself out, but the girl had heard my warning and threw herself to the side, diving into a sprawling roll that didn't look all that graceful, but kept her alive.

Logi **and** Stormtiger? Fuck, fuck, fuck. We had to get through this and move on, fast. The longer we delayed, the bigger chance of something else going wrong. Laserdream and Dinah Alcott were counting on us getting out of here, and if we took too long, Kaiser would just... I shut the thought away.

Bullets. Fire. Sharp blades of air. Any and all of it could tear me apart. The former less so as long as my absorption field was up, but both the heat from the fire and the air would hit me just fine, and I couldn't keep that shield up indefinitely. It took too much out of me to hold it for more than a few seconds.

The fear of death, of pain ripping me away from consciousness or even life, was almost overwhelming. But I shut it aside and rolled to my feet. My mouth opened seemingly of its own accord, and I shouted to get the attention of the men while their weapons were tracking toward the still sprawled figure of Rune. "Hey! How are NBA players like a box of crayons? The white ones are completely pointless."

That got their attention, and the men jerked their weapons toward me, opening fire instantly. I heard Logi bellow something at them, but they weren't listening. Their bullets came straight for me.

The gunfire faded after a second, and the men all stared at my still-standing figure. I smiled, lowering my defensive field before waving apologetically. "Sorry, guys. That was really sweet, but my parents taught me never to accept gifts from strangers. I'm gonna have to give these back to you."

"Aww, shi-" Logi managed to get out just before I ejected all of the bullets that the men had shot at me, spraying them low to take the men in the legs. I wasn't ready to go for a killing shot.

A few seconds later, I stopped as the men, including Logi, were all on the ground bleeding from multiple wounds. The big, bald man was screaming epithets at the men that surrounded him.

In the meantime, I saw that Rune had torn the floor out from under Stormtiger and was literally trying to batter him from every side with it. Unfortunately, the man was simply using air to blast away every chunk of debris she sent at him, flipping and twisting away each time anything got close. He was so fast and limber that it looked easy for him, as Rune's projectiles were knocked away one by one.

Worse, Logi may have been injured, but he was still conscious. Fire was gathering around him already. I glanced that way, then turned back and called, "Rune, switch!"

The other girl promptly made the floor beneath her own feet tear itself up. She rode it backwards over my head like a hoverboard, flipping around in the air to send that chunk of floor flying at Logi.

Meanwhile, I was left facing the aerokineteic asshole, who took advantage of the lapse in anything flying at him to come rushing straight for me, reforming those air claws against his hands on the way.

Think, Madison. Think! What did I have that I could this guy with that he couldn't just dodge or air-blast away? I had to hit him before he reached me, or things were gonna get bad really quick.

Stormtiger was almost on top of me before I moved. His hand came lashing out with that air claw aimed straight for my head. At the very last instant, I ejected one of the pieces of wall that I had absorbed. Rather than flinging it at the man, however, I simply released it right in front of me while throwing myself into a backward roll. The chunk of metal suddenly appeared in what had been empty air right where the man was swinging, and I heard an awful crack as his descending wrist **smacked** into the side of it at full force. The bit of wall was knocked aside, but the man's wrist was also broken.

Before he could recover from that, from my position on the floor, I summoned one of the rifles that I had absorbed earlier. Swinging it like a club, I smacked the man in the side of the leg as hard as I could.

Between that and the pain in his wrist, Stormtiger dropped to the floor. I rolled over, trying to move quickly before he recovered, certain that this little bit of pain wouldn't keep him down for long.

Scrambling to my feet, I lifted the rifle into position, placing the barrel right against the man's chest. "Move," I informed him, "And you'll need a doctor a lot faster than you would for that wrist."

"You don't have it in you," the man spat the words dismissively, though he had gone completely still. "Do you even know how to use that thing?" His voice was doubtful.

In answer, I focused on the other rifle that I had absorbed. The knowledge of how to use the weapons filled me, and I smiled grimly. "Yes," I informed him. "I do. And before you decide I won't use it, think about the fact that I know about Dinah Alcott. I know she's here. So if it comes down to shooting you or letting you assholes hurt that little girl anymore, think real hard about which one I'm willing to risk."

He was silent for a moment, that tiger mask regarding me thoughtfully. Then he spoke again, his focus on the figure who had come up beside me. "We'll kill you." His voice was flat and certain.

"Yeah, yeah," Rune drawled before lashing out with her foot to kick the man in the face. "Bring it on."

* * *

We continued on through the empty training rooms, a depressingly large and well-stocked arms locker full of enough firepower to take over a small country, and another short hallway before Rune called for a halt. She tore the floor up and used it to float both of us up to the ceiling, where I made a hole so that we could reach the empty hallway above.

After clambering out, Rune turned toward the nearby door. Her hand touched it before she stepped out of the way, and a second later the door was torn off its hinges. It went flying back down the hall away from us, and beyond I saw a room not too unlike the one where I had been kept.

Rune stepped ahead of me and into the room, only to be met by a girl stepping into view from the side, placing the barrel of a pistol against the side of her head while ordering flatly. "Stop."

"Othala." I spoke up, recognizing the girl in the red costume. "You can't do this. Dinah's an innocent girl. We have to get her out of here. She doesn't deserve to be used by Kaiser."

Holding still, Rune added, "He let her see his face. He let her see all our faces. You think he'll ever let her go? You think he'll ever stop using her? He uses all of us, Othala. Even you. Especially you."

"Why?" The other girl demanded, and I knew she wasn't replying to the warning. "Why would you betray the Empire, Rune? You're one of us. You're part of the family. Kaiser trusted you."

" _Kaiser_ electrocuted me because I told Archive about the innocent little girl he had locked up," Rune shot back vehemently. "He doesn't trust us, he uses us, and the second we're a liability, he puts us down."

Before Othala could respond to that, another voice spoke up from the corner of the room as a girl whose face I recognized from the news stepped into view. "Ninety-eight point two three seven percent chance that she's right."

"Go in the bathroom and wait there, Dinah," Othala instructed, her gun never wavering from Rune.

The younger girl looked more apologetic than frightened. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't expect this to happen so soon, but I guess it's time for me to leave."

"You're not going anywhere," Othala insisted. "Kaiser-"

"Is a piece of shit." I spoke up, interrupting her in mid-sentence. "He's a horrible, manipulative jackass, and he's using you, Othala."

"She's right," Dinah's voice was quiet. "He's been using you your whole life. Everyone has. Remember the monsters? They're all around you. They always have been. They raised you, they cared for you, they made you feel better. But that doesn't make them right."

Speaking up through the resulting silence, Rune announced, "I'm taking Dinah out of here. So either shoot me, or don't." Then she took a step forward and extended her hand to the younger girl.

"Dinah," Othala spoke up, her voice shaking just a little as the tension in the room rose. "I'm going to tell you one more time, go wait in the bathroom."

I saw the twelve-year old pause before wincing slightly as if struck by something painful. Then she moved. Instead of going into the bathroom, she took a few steps closer, laying a hand against Othala's side. "It's over," she said quietly. "I don't belong here anymore. And neither do you." With that, she looked directly at me while accepting Rune's outstretched hand. "The remote," she stated simply.

Realizing what she meant, I focused. The remote to the electrocution discs that Kaiser had planted on us appeared in my hand. I caught it, paused, and then held the remote out toward Othala. "Here." I met her gaze while extending the remote to her. "Kaiser used this to trigger the electrocution traps on our costumes. There's probably one on yours too. Take it."

The other girl went still for a moment, then took the remote with her free hand. "Why?" She asked. "Why not just trigger it and put me down so you can save the girl? It would've been faster."

"Yeah," I agreed. "It would've been faster, easier, and more convenient. And it would have been wrong. It would have taken the choice away from you, the choice you can still make. Do the right thing."

For a moment, the tension rose to almost unbearable levels. The pistol in Othala's grasp wavered a little, shaking along with her convictions before she finally lowered it with a long, hard sigh. The gun dropped to the floor, and she started to run her hand down over her own costume. Within a few seconds, she found the small silver disc that was the electrocution bug. After staring at it for a moment, the girl sighed, coming to her final decision. "Get the hell out of here. Just go." She sounded almost unbearably sad as she said it.

"Come with us," Dinah urged. "You don't have to stay here. You can do better if you come. You can do things that you can be proud of, not ashamed of. You'll be happier."

The girl's seemingly pointed words drew a noticeable flinch from Othala, before the older girl's head shook. "I can't. I won't abandon Victor. He's my husband. I... I love him. I can't just leave."

"Fair enough," Rune replied. "I'm really sorry about this, in that case."

"Sorry for wh-" Othala managed to get out before Rune abruptly stepped forward and pressed one hand against the older girl's shoulder and the other against her hip. An instant later, she took control of Othala's costume, using it propel the girl off her feet and onto the bed.

"Hey!" I blurted. "What're you doing?"

Rune was already moving, ignoring me. She smacked the top of the bed with one hand, and the blanket proceeded to wrap itself tightly and inescapably around the protesting, struggling Othala. "Sorry," she repeated. "But if you stay here, Kaiser'll hurt you since he can't get at us. You'll be the best target, the one that lost his prize. I can't let that happen. I won't. Not anymore."

A few seconds later, and Othala was fully bound up in the blanket, which floated off the bed while Othala continued to struggle, demanding to be let go.

A sound caught my attention then, and I pivoted to see one of the security doors fall over with half a dozen sharp steel spikes sticking through it. Kaiser, accompanied by at least ten more men, came striding into view. Was one of them my brother? Would I even know before it was too late?

Snapping out of it, I threw myself into the room. "Too late, he's here!"

"Go, move!" Rune turned and rushed toward the back end of the room. "Go, go, don't stop! We're right behind you, I swear!"

Taking the girl at her word, I sprinted straight for the back wall. My field took it out, and we were through. Behind me, I heard Kaiser shout something, along with the sound of footsteps as Rune and Dinah followed. Othala's increasingly frantic demands to be let go grew louder as she was floated along with us.

Following Rune's instructions, I passed through the next several rooms as fast as I could. Cringing at the sound of gunfire, I nonetheless pressed on. She was right, hesitating would be deadly at this point.

Finally, the other girl shouted for me to stop. Then she crowded in, shoved Dinah closer to me, and pulled the trapped Othala in as well. A second later, the bit of floor we were standing on tore itself loose, hovering up. Rather than wait for me to make a small hole, Rune just touched the ceiling and tore a much larger one, collapsing almost the entire floor of the room above before throwing all of that debris down toward the last hole I had made, blocking it off. That lasted for about a second before a long metal spike tore through the barrier.

Cursing, Rune took us up to the next floor. We repeated that twice more, Kaiser and his men always right behind us. They took the occasional potshot, but we managed to stay out of their direct sight for the most part.

"Up, up..." Rune announced, then pointed us toward a window that suddenly showed daylight. This time, the bit of ceiling that she had taken out was hurled that way just ahead of our floating platform. "And out!"

Glass crashed all around us as our platform tore through the window, taking out the rest of it that the first chunk of debris hadn't shattered. Suddenly, we went from the building where I had been locked up for the last few days, to the slight chill of the evening air. My eyes widened at the difference just before the platform crashed down. The exhausted Rune dropped us right into an alleyway behind what I belatedly recognized as the Medhall building.

And yet, even once we were out, it wasn't safe. Rolling onto my side after hitting the pavement, I looked up in time to see Kaiser land on the ground. His men were all gathered by the hole in the window, their weapons pointed down at us. The man's voice was hard. "A good try. But I must insist that all of you-"

"Hey, big brother."

The voice startled me, and I twisted to see a figure step into view. As tired as I was, it took me a second to recognize her. Iron Rain. Former member of the Empire, now part of the Faithful. She was standing between us and Kaiser, the sword in her hand drawn and pointed that way. "Guess you're alive after all, huh? Just as well, I'd hate to let someone else do what I promised to do myself." Taking a step that way, she lowered her voice slightly. "Ready to finish that conversation we started before I left?"

"Rain." Kaiser sighed. "I'm afraid I don't have time to continue our disagreement right this second."

Iron Rain chuckled, the sound humorless. "What's the matter? Oh, right, your Empire's being taken apart. How's that working out for you?"

He snarled and took a step toward us. Before he could come any closer, however, something seemed to catch his eye. Looking up, the man cursed and then threw himself backwards just as a blinding white blast of energy pulverized the ground where he had been standing. A rapid second shot tore through the guards who had been holding their weapons on us, scattering the ones that remained standing.

Kaiser erected a barrier in front of himself, retreating toward the nearby building while it was blasted apart. He cursed, flinging himself at the last second in through a side door to escape the blasts.

The figure responsible for the attacks flew down from the sky and landed beside Iron Rain. Purity. She glowed brightly against the darkness, lightning up the whole area. "Coward," she spat after the retreating Kaiser.

Turning toward us, Iron Rain gestured. "My brother won't give up for long. Not where Dinah is concerned. Move!"

Picking myself up, I helped Rune to her feet. Othala had gone silent for the moment, while she was floated back off the ground. Together alongside Dinah Alcott and the two older cape women, we retreated from the alley, running straight to a waiting van where I saw a boy with almost comically oversized muscles wearing a black spandex suit with diamonds over it sitting behind the wheel.

Iron Rain fell into the van after us, while Purity took to the sky once more. "Go, Browbeat."

He pulled the van away from the curb with a screech of tires, and we were gone. I was out. I was out! It only truly struck me right then.

"Are you okay, Dinah?" Iron Rain was looking at young girl, eyes filled with concern. "We got there as soon as we could."

"Uh huh," the other girl gave a single nod, looking unconcerned. "I'm fine. Thanks to them."

"Wha—huh?" I looked back and forth between the two. "You... you..."

"You know each other!" Rune blurted. "What the fuck. What the hell? How do you **know each other**?! What do you mean, you came as soon as you could? How the fuck did... huh?" Othala looked equally shocked.

"It's a long story," Iron Rain informed us. Her eyes focused on me. "Okay, we're not kidnapping you. Understand? You can get out any time you want."

From where she was lying, still trapped by the blanket, Othala complained, "Yeah, _**I'm**_ the one being kidnapped."

"It's for your own good," Rune insisted before looking at me. "You want to know where he's keeping Laserdream, right? It's-"

"He already moved her," Dinah interrupted. "One hundred percent chance she's gone before we get there."

I felt a crushing weight fall on me. "T-too late?" I managed, almost shaking. "No... no, but... that was our only chance to... to find her."

A hand reached out to catch my chin. Iron Rain made me look at her. "Look at me. My brother will not kill her until he gets what he wants. Do you understand? He lost Dinah, he _**won't**_ lose this too. He's invested too much into it. He will keep Laserdream alive until she finishes that project."

"But... but how can I find her?" I asked, gulping. "Even if I get back to the Brigade..."

"We will find her," Iron Rain spoke firmly. "You can believe whatever else you want about us, about me. But believe this much. I hate my brother. I will stop him from finishing this project of his. And that means finding out where he's stashed Laserdream. When we do, it could get messy. She has no reason to work with us, no reason to believe we're there to help her when we show up. But if you come with us, if you help us find her..."

I opened my mouth, then shut it. "You... want me to come with you? To help you find where Kaiser moved Laserdream?"

"It's up to you," she replied. "Say the word and we'll stop this van to let you out. Or you can come with us and help save your teammate and stop my brother's big project."

My mouth opened and then shut. The rush of escaping from that building was wearing off. I breathed in and out, looking around at all the people. Rune was the one I trusted the most, which probably said something pretty bad. Looking to her, I asked, "What about you?"

She shrugged. "Me? I'd rather stick with them than run off on my own. Besides," her gaze found Dinah. "I've got questions that someone is gonna answer."

Looking down for a second while I collected myself, I finally straightened and held my hand out. The cell phone appeared in my palm, and I stared as the phone looked for a signal... and found one.

Feeling numb, I reached out to hit one of the buttons on the phone, then held it up to my ear as the other occupants of the van all watched me.

It rang three times before a panting, out of breath voice answered. "Who is this?" There was a definite note of almost desperate hope in the voice. My name and number would have shown up, but they clearly doubted what they were seeing.

"Lady Photon?" I spoke into the phone. "It's Archive."

"Oh thank God." The words came as a rushed exclamation, a prayer and breath at the same time. "You're alive. You're alive. You're really alive. Are you okay? Where are you? Where are you, Archive? Where's Laserdream? Is she... are you both..."

I hesitated, looking to the others. "I'm okay," I said quietly. "So is Laserdream, I think. Kaiser wanted to use her for something."

"Kaiser—he's alive too, isn't he?" There was more anger, more fury in her voice mixed with the relief that Crystal and I hadn't been killed after all. Mrs. Pelham's emotions had clearly been run ragged.

"Yes." I winced at that admission before pressing on. "He wants to use Laserdream for some project. So she's alive. But I escaped and he moved her."

"Tell us where you are," Lady Photon instructed. "We'll come get you and then we'll find her."

I hesitated, biting my lip. My gaze found Iron Rain, who waited patiently, eyes watching me. Then I breathed out. "I'll find her. I promise. I'm sorry. I'm sorry she got caught helping me. I'm sorry all this happened."

"What?" Lady Photon's voice came back. "It's not your fault, Archive. We don't blame you. No one blames you."

"I'll bring her back to you," I told her. "I promise. Tell my parents I'm alive. Tell them I'm okay, if you can."

"Your parents..." Her voice was even more strained. "Listen, Archive, you have to-"

"I'll bring Laserdream back," I repeated. "I swear, I'll bring her back."

Then I disconnected the phone and reabsorbed it before sighing as I sat back.

"So... where are we going now?"

 **8-05 – Sophia**

 _ **Wednesday, April 20th, 2011**_

"Get the **fuck** out of my way, you worthless little cunt!" With a bellow of frustration that had boiled over into utterly blinding rage, the Empire thug swung the metal-studded baseball bat at my head.

Dumbass. I moved forward, shifting into my shadow-state at the same time. As the bat whiffed through me, I lashed out upward, driving the heel of my hand into the man's chin with enough force to make him stagger a bit. Then I leapt up, kicking the man once in the stomach before using that to propel myself higher into a full backward flip. In that motion, my other foot smacked the son of a bitch in the face just as he was being bent over by the first kick. He stumbled backwards while I landed on the ground in a crouch, my other hand already aiming the crossbow. The tranquilizer bolt took the man in the chest before he could recover, and he groaned out a few curse words before collapsing entirely.

Clockblocker, who had come sprinting up to help, looked down at the moron on the ground. "Just in case you don't read body language very well," he informed the idiot. "That's her way of saying 'no.""

"Got him?" Aegis asked while flying down into the IHOP parking lot, panting and out of breath.

"Nah," I shot back at him, trying to hide how relieved I was for the chance to catch my own breath as well. "We were just trying to decide if there was time to stop inside for some pancakes and coffee."

"Pancakes sound great," Aegis replied as though he had no idea I was being sarcastic. "Anyone wants to go for some after we're done, it's my treat. Especially if that teleport station reacts to this guy."

We'd found a couple of the hidden Empire teleportation gizmos and reported them to the Protectorate already. Not that they could do anything about it. There was some kind of massive blow-up battle going on between Lung's new and improved ABB and a bunch of the Empire, with the Protectorate caught in the middle. Add in the members of the Brigade going psycho on every gang member they saw and things were so chaotic and nuts out there that the only update for our mission that Armsmaster had been able to give us was to try and catch one of the Empire goons and get them to activate a teleport station. Not to go in ourselves, of course. We were too ickle and pathetic to do something useful like that. No, he just wanted us to let him know when the station activated so that he could record some data off it. Then we just had to rinse and repeat until he managed to collect enough information to triangulate where it was sending the people that went through it. Simple, in theory, but catching these slippery sons of bitches had turned out to be harder than it sounded. They kept disappearing before we could stop them, with this useless piece of shit being the first that we'd managed to corner and put on the ground.

"Got one," Aegis spoke through his com while reaching down to haul the man up off the ground. "He's unconscious and secured, thanks to Shadow Stalker. You guys having any luck on your end?"

It took a few seconds before Gallant's voice responded, "Yeah, hold on." There was a pause, then he continued. "We've got two. Veil caught them in his shade until we caught up. Meet you back there?"

I tried not to visibly seethe. Oh, so _Grue_ had helped catch two of the thugs, huh? I could just picture his smirk. I'd caught one, he'd captured two. He had to be loving that **so** much. Jackass.

"Yeah, meet us back there," Aegis confirmed. "We'll send one through at a time and see if it's enough." Then he turned to Clockblocker and me while shifting the thug to his shoulder. "Ready?"

In answer, I just started to run back the way we had come. In the distance, several blocks away, I could hear the sound of the Protectorate and the Brigade going head to head with the Empire and the ABB. From the sound of things, the situation was getting worse by the moment. With so much firepower being thrown around, **something** was going to have to give very soon. And at this rate, it might just end up being the city itself.

* * *

"So according to the Brigade," Aegis explained a few minutes later as the whole team stood in front of the Empire's teleportation device, "We just hit this button here on the side of the arch, then push them into it and it should teleport them away. Doesn't work with anyone that isn't part of the Empire, even if they go in at the same time as someone that is authorized. It only teleports people it recognizes."

Standing back and out of the way, I let my gaze flick over Vista. The girl's back was to me, her attention centered on Aegis. The kid hadn't so much as glanced at me the entire time we had been out here. It was like she didn't _care_ what my response to her little rant was.

That rant... the thought of me made me stiffen. Fuck, why did I care what that little baby thought? Oh boo hoo, I was a bully. I hurt some little girl who couldn't even... who didn't even... who wasn't... My lips pursed and I looked away, staring at the ground for a moment. Predator, prey. Successful, worthless. Strong, weak. The words, the mantra, repeated itself in my head. It made sense. It was my life, my code, my... meaning. So why was it becoming so hard to hold that up? Why was it so hard for other people to see how much sense it made? Emma had understood. She'd gotten it. So had Madison, to an extent. She'd never been quite as ruthless as I'd wanted, but she'd been okay.

But now? Now people kept throwing that stupid 'bully' thing in my face. God, like they wouldn't have been pissed at seeing that mopey little weakling too! Like they wouldn't have wanted to just make her stop whining so much, or give her something to whine about. Like they wouldn't...

The image of Hebert's face as she was pulled out of that locker, slack and empty of thought or emotion swam up in my mind, and I jerked my head away in disgust. "Fuck."

"Stalker?" Gallant's voice was concerned. "What's wrong, did you see something?"

Blinking up as I remembered where I was, I shook my head. "I'm fine." Turning away from the boy, I tried to focus instead on the teleport arch, where Aegis and Chronicler were laying out the first of the Empire thugs that we had captured. Except rather than facing the two guys that I could at least stand, my gaze fell on the last person I wanted to look at right then. Fucking Grue.

His new, PRT-approved costume was substantially different than the old one. Mostly it consisted of a one piece jumpsuit that framed his stupidly muscular figure more than I was comfortable noticing. Most of the legs and the lower part of the sides of the torso were gold while the boots and chest up to and down his arms were scarlet red. The gloves were gold as well, and the mask that he wore extended from the back of the costume, covering his throat, head, and the the top half of his face while leaving his mouth and chin bare. Something about showing people part of his face to imply trust or whatever.

He wasn't looking at me. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the window in the far corner, squinting intently. A second later, his uncovered eyes widened and the (supposedly) former lowlife thug blurted, "Down, everyone get down!" Turning, he hurled himself straight at Vista, taking the startled girl to the floor.

In the next instant, there was a deafening crash as the wall seemed to utterly explode. I went into shadow form and threw myself up and backward, staring as a body the size of a small building came crashing in, sending glass and chunks of wall flying in every direction.

No, not one body. There were two, I realized belatedly. The **massive** figures were grappling with one another. The one on the bottom was either Fenja or Menja, I couldn't tell without their weapon. The other was a _gigantic_ and fully transformed (as far as I knew) Lung. He was almost all dragon by that point, his impervious scales deflecting all of the giant amazon's increasingly frantic attempts to smack him away from her. Fire billowed out, burning the woman's skin while Lung's claws remained locked around her throat in spite of everything she did to try and free herself. Worse, the Empire's teleportation arch was a pile of broken pieces.

From my perch on top of the catwalk that my leap had brought me to on the opposite side of the room, I started to move. Then my eyes spotted a figure lying entirely too close to the struggling giants. Gallant. He was face down on the floor, motionless. Meanwhile, Lung and the Nazi amazon were getting closer and closer to smashing him into paste without even noticing.

"Gallant, move, you stupid fuck!" I shouted both at the boy and through my comm. There was no response, and everyone else still seemed to be picking themselves out of the debris. Any second now and either Lung or the giantess were going to roll over and crush the naive son of a bitch.

Cursing again, I threw myself off of the catwalk. Using my shadow-form to slow my fall right at the end, I came down in a roll right next to the still-motionless Gallant. The second I landed, the heat almost made me collapse. I could feel my skin burning beneath my costume, and my eyes teared up from the smoke that was being given off. I could barely see what the hell I was doing.

Muttering about how stupid I was being, I hooked my arms underneath the guy and began to haul him up and away. Faster, faster, fucking move faster, Sophia! I raged inwardly at myself both for doing this shit and for taking so long in equal measure. I had to get away from the damn heat before I passed out.

Above and behind me, I heard a sickening crunch followed by a shrill shriek from the giant woman. Turning my head, I caught the slightest glimpse of something huge slamming down toward me. Shadow, I could go shadow, but that would mean leaving Gallant. Grimacing, I gave the boy a hard shove, trying to throw him as far as I could manage. _**Then**_ I focused on my shadow-state.

Too late. A crushing force smacked me in the back, sending me to the floor with a cry in spite of myself. I hit the ground and rolled, back screaming in protest until I saw the massive, monstrous figure of Lung towering over me. The ABB gang leader had just grazed me with one of his claws, and it hurt enough that I could barely make myself move. Meanwhile, the amazon Nazi lay motionless underneath him, breathing in short, ragged gasps while blood poured down from a deep wound in her throat.

Glaring at me, Lung made a dismissive noise and started to lash out with his claw. I tried to jump into my shadow-state, but the pain made it so hard to focus. Change, damn it Sophia, change!

That claw came down... and was intercepted by a fog of energy that engulfed it before reshaping into an identical Lung figure. Before the original knew what was happening, he was smacked hard by one of Chronicler's ghost-shapes, which knocked him backwards and away from me.

"You okay?" The boy himself caught my arm and hauled me to my feet before making another gesture that made his ghost-Lung leap on top of the original. "I don't think I can hold him for long. We need-"

A roar of blind rage interrupted him as Lung incinerated the ghost-figure with a burst of flame. He was back on his feet, already lunging down toward us, murder in what little could be seen of his eyes.

Then... he was interrupted yet again. A smaller, winged figure flew down through the opening in the wall and kicked Lung in the back of the head to distract him before landing on the ground between us and the ABB leader.

I blinked. The figure standing in front of me was... new. Who the fuck was this? The figure was tall and noticeably feminine, but _far_ from normal. Instead of skin, she was covered in black, shiny scales that looked damp. Blue glowing lines were visible between those scales, and she had two different pairs of bat-wings, one set emerging from her shoulders while the second, smaller pair originated around her stomach. Both sets of wings overlapped one another somewhat. Her hands ended in sharp claws, and her feet looked like an eagle's talons. She wore only a few scraps of clothing, as if she had simply torn through the rest. When she glanced over her shoulder toward where Chronicler and I stood, I saw a beak-like face framed by strands of red hair. Something in her face tugged at my memory, though I was sure I'd never seen this figure before.

Then Lung was lunging, mouth open to roar as the flames around his body seemed to melt the concrete beneath him. He came down while the gargoyle figure leapt upward to meet him. Her claws lashed out, smacking the dragon-figure across the face before the force of his lunge knocked her back into the cement floor with enough force to cave it in partway.

Lung roared again in triumph, but the gargoyle was on her feet already. The clawed hand that she had smacked him with was glowing green, and as I stared, it spread down throughout the glowing lines between her scales, taking them from blue to emerald. She had slashed Lung and now her glowing lines were changing color.

Before I could think too much about what _that_ could possibly mean, the gargoyle straightened and extended her hand. The scorching flames that were spreading throughout the room were engulfed with a frigid wind that solidified them into jagged icicles before they melted away, removing the heat from the room. At the same time, the wind worked to blow the blinding smoke away. I caught a glimpse of the rest of the Wards picking themselves out of the debris, finally able to see what they were doing.

Lung, howling his displeasure, lashed out with his claws again. The gargoyle leapt over the outstretched arm, using her wings to carry herself into the air before pointing her other hand. This time, rather than a cold wind, a bright green glow enveloped the giant figure. Lung screamed in rage, and then simply... vanished.

"What the hell?!" Chronicler, standing beside me, blurted. "Where'd he go?"

"I'd like to know the same thing." The voice came from the hole in the wall, where Armsmaster stood with his halberd set in a defensive position. "What did you do to Lung?" His voice was careful, I noticed. It wasn't exactly accusatory, but he wasn't letting his guard down either.

The gargoyle was breathing hard, her wings spread out as though instinctively trying to make herself look larger. "I teleported him away," she said, her voice sounding odd somehow. There was a hollow-echo quality to it, like she was speaking through a long pipe or something. "He's in the ocean somewhere. He'll be weak again by the time he gets back."

Armsmaster nodded slowly, lowering his weapon somewhat. "That's your power? Teleportation and that cold wave?"

The gargoyle's head shook. "No... No, I don't..." She trailed off, and I saw that the green glow was already fading back to blue. She gestured with an arm. "Can't do it again. Could only do it after I hit him. I hit him and then I... I knew what his power was. I knew his power and... how it works. And I knew what to do to counter him. The cold... and the teleportation, it was to stop him, to counter his power. Now it's gone because he's gone."

Clockblocker had found his way over to us by that point. "You mean you hit him and then you just spontaneously manifested the powers you needed to stop him? Man, that is **such** b-"

"Quiet, Clockblocker," Armsmaster snapped. He held a hand up to the gargoyle. "Hold on." Then the man glanced toward the still horrifically injured, yet living giant amazon and pointed his halberd. Some kind of glowing energy shot out to envelop her throat, holding it closed like a bandage. Then he spoke again, this time into his communicator. "Lung is off the battlefield. Repeat, Lung is off the battlefield. But we need immediate medical attention for Fenja in giant form. She won't last much longer, let's make it snappy." Looking up then, he added, "Anyone else hurt?"

"Gallant needs help too," I blurted, gesturing toward the still fallen figure in his armor. I saw Vista's little head snap around toward me from where she was kneeling at his side, but ignored her stare.

Looking that way, Armsmaster nodded and sent in a call for that as well. Then he focused on the gargoyle once more. "What do you call yourself? Who do you work with?"

For a moment, the gargoyle said nothing. She was completely still. Then her head shook. "I don't know. I don't... this is all new. I just saw... I just didn't want to... I just wanted to help." Her voice was small at the end.

"You did," Armsmaster assured her. "You saved a lot of people, including our Wards. Would you mind coming in to talk to us? You're not being detained, but we would like to chat if you don't mind. The battle seems to be settling down now. Without Lung on the field, the ABB should back off, and the Empire was already retreating. They're done."

The gargoyle went still again, standing motionless before giving a single, silent nod.

"Good," Armsmaster sounded unbelievably pleased. Which, no shit. I wondered how fast they were going to give this girl the recruitment speech. He must be drooling over the prospect of getting his hands on a cape that could actually counter Lung, let alone how useful the ability to manifest powers to counter other people's powers would be.

From the other side of the room, Aegis called out, "Teleporter's busted, boss!" He stood over the ruined remains.

Cursing, Armsmaster sighed. "We were afraid of that. Apparently the Empire's been self-destructing the rest of them too. Which means no using them to find their base." He stared off into the distance for a few seconds before gesturing. "Never mind, you guys didn't do anything wrong. Good job today. You can go now, we'll take care of Gallant." Looking toward the gargoyle figure, he added, "I'd like a chance to talk to our new friend here in private."

Ignoring the others, I launched myself upward, letting my shadow-form carry me to the roof while the others went for the hole in the wall. Thoughts and emotions that I couldn't understand were vying for my attention, while all I wanted to do was make them leave me alone. Gallant was hurt, there was some new gargoyle cape, Grue... existed, Vista's little speech back in the locker room, all of it just... confused me. I needed to get away.

Reaching the roof, I took three steps and was about to lunge up and off when I sensed movement behind me. Whirling around while skidding to a stop, I froze as the blade of a sword was pressed right near my face.

It was Foil. The girl from the mall, the ABB cape wearing the samurai armor. She stood there with the sword pointed at me. "Don't leave and don't call for help," she said quietly. "We need to talk."

"Not sure what we could have to talk about," I responded flatly. "And whatever you think you're doing with that sword, I'll just shadow my way through it."

"Maybe," Foil replied. "Or maybe it'll cut you anyway just like it did in the mall."

I froze. "... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't insult yourself or me," the other girl retorted. "I'm not here to pass lies back and forth. I'm not an idiot. I've watched how you move, how you fight. I know identical fighting styles when I see them. And I know you used your power when we fought. What I don't know is why you're out playing independent hero while you're already a Ward."

I said nothing, thinking quickly about how to get out of this. In the face of my silence, Foil shrugged. "Never mind, it's okay. Don't tell me, that's not why I'm here anyway. I'm here to tell you I'll keep quiet about the other identity. Whatever you're doing, it's none of my business. But in exchange for being quiet, I need your help."

I sneered. "Sorry, I'm not in the habit of helping low-life criminals."

"Good," Foil replied. "Because you'll be helping an innocent person. My sister. Well, adopted sister. Lung took her. He's holding her hostage unless I do what he says. So I'm stuck. But you're not. So you and your independent group are going to help save her. You're going to save my sister. In exchange, I'll keep quiet about this whole separate identity thing. Deal?"

I said nothing for a few seconds. Over my comm, I could hear the others chatting about getting started with the clean-up and the aftermath of this whole affair. Below, at the base of the building, sirens grew louder as the emergency services arrived for Fenja and Gallant.

Finally, I gave a single nod. "Deal."

"Great," Foil nodded and stepped back before lowering her sword. "Here," From her back, she withdrew a bag and tossed it to me. "All the information I have about where he's keeping my sister." She stepped back again, reaching the edge of the roof. "I'll be in touch," she promised, then turned to hop off the roof while calling back to me, "Maybe next time we fight it'll be on the same side!"

Then she was gone, and I was left on the roof holding the bag she had thrown to me.

Fuck. Now one of Lung's group... unwilling though she claimed to be, knew my secret. Which meant that I had to help her save her sister, without letting Bryce, Aisha, or Muse know why I was doing it.

Could my life get any **more** complicated?

 **8-06 – Taylor**

 _ **Friday, April 22nd**_

"Labyrinth, are you and Ariadne still in position?"

Beside me on the park bench where the two of us were sitting, Elle responded. "Yes, Faultline, and so are the ducks!" The sheer delight and cheerfulness in the other girl's voice made me smile inwardly. Because yes, a flock of ducks had gathered around our feet, all of them vying for our attention. Or, to be more accurate, vying for the contents of the bread bag that sat between us.

I expected Faultline to be confused by the mention of ducks, but her only response was a simple, "Make sure you feed all of them and not just the loudest ones. And stay in position. The Gladiators should pass your location in five minutes. Are you ready to make the adjustments?"

Picking apart a piece of bread, Elle tossed some over the heads of the ducks to reach the ones in back while dutifully replying, "Yes, Faultline. We can reach all the way to the road now."

She was right. We had been sitting here in the park together long enough that both my panoptic vision and Elle's reach with her power extended back across a hundred feet of park behind us, beyond the tall wrought iron fence and into the busy afternoon street. My vision had stretched far enough by that point that I could read the clock on the side of the bank across the intersection. It was ten minutes after three.

Of course, being the middle of the day, there was no way that Elle and I could have gotten away with dressing up in our costumes to sit in the middle of the park without attracting **far** too much attention. Yet we had needed to be right where we now were for long enough to stretch Elle's power out to the road. So, the two of us wore clothes over the costumes. In my case, that meant a pair of loose running pants and a windbreaker that covered the small dart gun that sat snug in a holster at my hip. Elle's robe, meanwhile, was simply bundled up between us alongside our masks. To protect our identities as much as possible, the brims of the hats we wore were pulled low.

So yeah, we still probably looked suspicious, but 'those two might be up to something' suspicious was a step up from 'hey, those two in the costumes, aren't they those cape mercenaries' suspicious.

And honestly, I was enjoying the opportunity to sit in the park and feed the ducks. Even if we were about to do something incredibly dangerous, the innocence of the moment helped me feel more human than I had since... God, I couldn't remember. Somehow, the nearest thing that came to mind was the time I had spent up at camp the summer before... well, the summer before everything changed.

Elle held some bread out, and I directed the suit to take it. Tearing the slice into little pieces, I observed the squabbling ducks for another few seconds, watching for the ones that had managed to get the least so far before doing my best to toss the bread directly to them once there was an opening.

My thoughts drifted back to home, and what had been going on there while the Crew and I had been gone. From what I could piece together between the news, people online, and what little Dad would actually talk about, it had basically become a war zone back there. Seriously, multiple cape gangs brawling in the streets, innocent civilians taken hostage by the Merchants, a couple of the Brigade being _**killed**_ by the leader of the Empire, who then also died? Plus, Lung had half a dozen new capes. Dad couldn't stop telling me how glad he was that I hadn't been in the city for any of it. Which at least meant that he'd stopped going on about how crazy that little stunt on the freeway in Vegas had been.

Faultline, on the other hand, was annoyed that we weren't there to check out the rumors of a gargoyle cape that had been making the rounds through Parahumans Online and various other sites. People swore that they had seen the cape chasing after Lung while the ABB leader had been brawling with Fenja from the Empire, but no one had gotten a decent picture. Still, there were enough people that agreed on enough of the description that Faultline was sure there was something to it. Which meant that she was missing an opportunity to speak with what might be a brand new Case 53 cape, and she wasn't happy about it. Still, she'd agreed to do this job, and Faultline was a woman of her word.

At least the city had been quiet for the past couple of days. It had given me a chance to stop worrying about my dad and focus on this job that we were supposed to be pulling off for Accord.

Speaking of which, I had just fed another of the ducks when Faultline's voice came back. "One minute to contact. Do your thing, Labyrinth. Ariadne, prepare to deploy."

That was our cue. The two of us stood up as one. Elle held the bag out to dump the rest of the bread out for the ducks before grabbing the sack with her robe and our masks in it. Then we walked together toward a small stand of trees that blocked the view both from the road and the nearby path.

Once we were out of sight (which I knew for a fact thanks to my vision), Elle dug her robe out of the sack and hauled it over her head. She was shimmying her way into it with her arms up when she abruptly yelped. Both of her arms were sticking out of the same sleeve, and she had somehow gotten herself twisted around so that as she tried to yank her extra arm down, it caught against her other arm and left her trapped. "Ahh! Ariadne, help!" She squawked, spinning around so fast trying to get a look at me from between the folds of the robe half-covering her that she almost fell over.

"Help?" Faultline leapt on that. "Damn, are we blown? Spitfire, Gregor, back to the street. Newter-"

By that point, I had caught hold of the still-spinning Elle and extracted her from the robe before putting it back in place. She beamed at me before chirping, "No, Faultline, we're okay. I was stuck in my robe."

Poor Faultline and her military precision tactics hadn't even begun to respond to that before Shamrock's voice interrupted. "Truck just turned the corner. Twenty seconds. You guys ready?"

Elle confirmed that we were by that point, both of us settling the masks into place before turning our attention set on the road beyond the trees. Within seconds, I saw the changes begin to take place. It was subtle enough that most people would miss it, particularly for the few seconds that we needed, but the pavement was rapidly replaced by a dark tar that bubbled a bit. The two of us had spent hours the day before making sure she was ready to bring the tar pit into this world right where we needed it to be, and it was going even better than our practice session.

Just as that stretch of road was fully replaced with the pit of tar, the sound of an engine caught my attention. The truck that we had been waiting on entered the range of my view, and what a truck it was. I might have thought that it was something Squealer had built, except that it was all elegance where her creations were... not. Long enough to be a semi truck with attached trailer, yet it was all one piece. It looked like an enormous glowing blue gemstone that glittered in the afternoon light. Rather than wheels, the thing was held off the ground by some kind of hover technology generated from the white ski-shaped things attached to its sides that produced its signature hum. A smaller and slightly sleeker crystal shape on top toward the front showed where the occupants sat.

This was the personal transport of Trinket, the tinker of the Pacific Gladiators. According to the research that we had read over the past week, she was capable of building almost anything she set her mind to, as long as it was made out of this crystal-like material that her own body produced.

As the hovering gem-truck crossed over the tar, the bubbling liquid reacted to the intrusion just as it had in her pocket dimension when we had practiced. Large tentacle-like globs of the material shot up to grab onto the vehicle, dragging it down to hit the tar. The craft's powerful engines roared, but the tar was too strong, hauling it down until the bottom third of the vehicle vanished into the inky material

The hatch on top of the crystal-vehicle opened, allowing the person inside to pop her head out. Like her inventions themselves, Trinket appeared to be made out of solid gemstone. She literally broke pieces of herself off in order to gain materials to build her devices, regenerating over time.

That crystal-head had just popped up when a shot from the rifle that Shamrock was aiming out a window from across the street tore into her, taking a sizable chunk of her shoulder out and forcing the tinker inside to drop back down into cover. According to our records, Trinket didn't feel pain, but I still flinched at the sight. Another shot ensured that the Case 53 tinker knew the first hadn't been a fluke, and she dropped back into cover. Trinket wasn't going anywhere, and she had no way of knowing where the shots were coming from.

"Contact," Faultline's voice was loud in my ear. "Shamrock, make sure that tinker stays put, and give her something to think about once in awhile. Ariadne, get ready. Gregor and Spitfire, you're up... now."

The very edge of my wide-angle view caught sight of the two in question, standing up on the roof of the nearby building. Gregor extended his hands and sprayed gallons of liquid out, first toward one end of the street and then toward the other. A second later, Spitfire followed that up with a burst of flame that ignited the liquid to create walls of flame that extended at least twenty feet into the air, cutting this area of the street off from most ground-based outside interference.

No sooner had the fire gone up, than a figure in the sky came rushing straight down into my view-area. That was Flyby, another member of the Gladiators. He was (obviously) a flying cape with rapid laser-based blaster powers that was only capable of **using** those rapid firing lasers on a target that he first struck with a much slower-moving energy orb that he was capable of directing through the air. The others had obviously had him in sight throughout the truck's approach, but the downside of my area-based viewing was, as usual, lack of any sight beyond that particular area.

"Mockshow, Newter, go." Faultline ordered, her voice terse. "Shamrock, ETA on Depthcharge?"

"According to the tracker we put on his motorcycle, twenty seconds," Shamrock's voice returned while the massive three-car robot thing that Mockshow had cobbled together reared up onto its makeshift legs and swatted at the incoming Flyby, driving him backwards to the building where Newter was waiting to jump onto the man's back and knock him out.

"Good," Faultline still didn't allow herself to sound pleased in response to Shamrock's report. "Hit him when he rounds the corner. I'm going in. Ariadne, eyes open for either of your targets. Labyrinth, stage two."

I nodded silently, focusing on any sign of Clearcut or Oneway. The former was able to turn invisible and make anything he touched sharp, while the latter was the leader of the Gladiators, a shapeshifter who turned into inanimate objects rather than living beings and became immune to any power after it was used on her once. I wondered how that would work with my vision. If I jumped into her head once, would I not be able to do it again? What about if I fought her, would my power just stop filling my brain with all that data as far as it related to Oneway after I used it once? How did that immunity work?

Hopefully it wouldn't matter. Actually, two levels of hopefully. First, that we wouldn't have to deal with the Gladiators' leader at all, and second, that this would be the **only** time we dealt with them so immunity after the fact wouldn't matter.

By that point, Elle had conjured a half dozen stone platforms of varying sizes and heights all around the trapped crystal vehicle. The platforms themselves were covered in moss and a few tribal designs, as well as, in one unseen corner, a pair of smiley faces with Taylor and Elle written beneath them.

It was those platforms that Faultline used then, leaping from the window where she had been waiting to land on the nearest one. She then proceeded to jump her way down the platforms to reach the one that was closest to Trinket's captured truck, then landed on the back of it and began to use her power to cut into the back.

My vision didn't extend far enough to let me see the next member of the Gladiator's arrive, but I did see Shamrock swing the rifle that way and take a single shot, followed by another before she reported, "Depthcharge has taken cover in an alley. I think he's trying to work his way around the other side."

"On it," Spitfire replied. I saw her move to the far end of that roof to lay down (literal) covering fire to keep the Gladiator pinned down.

The whole time, I kept watch for any sign of someone who wasn't supposed to be there. We didn't know exactly if my power was going to let me notice people who were invisible or in different shapes, but we hoped it would. Unfortunately, we didn't have anyone with suitable powers to test the theory on.

Then I saw it: a single figure running toward Faultline from the direction of one of the other buildings where he had obviously cut through to get around the fire. No one else was paying attention to him, and the costume, a sleek silver affair, matched that of Clearcut.

Touching Labyrinth's shoulder to get her attention, I took a step forward and grabbed the dart gun from its place at my hip. Raising it, I took careful aim before letting off a single shot. My practice over the past few days, something Faultline had insisted I do _without_ the benefit of all the super-analyzing capability that the combat aspect of my power allowed, paid off. The first shot went high over the man's shoulder, but the second one delivered a dart straight into his side, one that had been tipped with Newter's saliva. The poor guy was on the ground within seconds, and I hadn't even needed to rely on the part of my power that tended to knock me out afterward, or at least leave me on the ground.

By that point, Faultline was through the back side of the vehicle, struggling with Trinket. Still no sign of Oneway. That worried me a little bit. Someone that could turn into inanimate objects could be literally _anything_ around us. Plus she was the team leader. So where was she?

As if in answer to my question, the loud roar of an approaching vehicle filled the air. Shamrock cursed, and then the vehicle itself entered my view: an armored car that tore right through the flames as if they weren't there. The driver's seat was empty because, of course, there was no driver.

Reaching the nearest of Elle's pillars, the truck promptly shrank and reformed itself until a **person** stood there: Oneway, in her gold and blue costume. An armored truck had just turned into a human being.

God damn it, powers were _**weird.**_

To punctuate that, Faultline was climbing out of the crystal-truck when Oneway leaned around the corner of the pillar she was taking cover behind and lifted an arm, which proceeded to shift and reform itself into a rifle. Yeah, a rifle. She actually took a shot at Faultline, but the woman's reactions were too fast, and she was able to throw herself back along the roof of the crystal-truck to avoid it.

"Need cover," our team leader reported tersely. "Ariadne?"

I nodded and focused. Shot. Faultline was about to be shot if I didn't do something. Stepping forward, I let my hand lift the dart gun once more. The pillar was in the way, protecting her from any direct shot. Numbers, calculations, ideas, all of it and more entered my head. I saw what Oneway was doing, her gun-arm raised and tracking. I saw the way she breathed out, the way her eyes narrowed. There wasn't a trigger finger to watch, but I somehow knew just by **observing** the woman herself exactly when she was going to fire, almost before she did.

She moved to put herself in position, and I fired the dart up and past the pillar, putting it nowhere near the woman herself.

In the next instant, Oneway let off a shot. The bullet that she fired (though where _those_ were coming from I couldn't begin to guess) barely grazed the tail end of the dart that I had shot, spinning it around in midair. Most of the dart's momentum was lost, but it dropped with just enough force to graze the woman's cheek. And where Newter's saliva was concerned, a graze was close enough. The woman was down within a few seconds.

Unfortunately, pulling off that shot was apparently all my power thought it could handle just then. I was down as well. I saw black spots for a few seconds as my body hit the ground, and heard Elle call my name (cape name, thankfully). But in spite of my struggle, consciousness failed me.

* * *

 _Sunday, April 24th_

We escaped the battle, obviously. I woke up within the hour, but by that time we were already well away from the spot. According to Mockshow, she had directed her car-bot creation to pick up not only Faultline, but also both Elle and me to carry us all away while Gregor, Spitfire, and Shamrock laid down covering fire, literal and otherwise.

With the required tinker device in hand, we were now thousands of miles away from Oregon. Boston, to be precise. While the rest of us sat outside to wait in the van, Faultline was taking the device in to deliver it to Accord.

Well, the rest of us were _sort of_ waiting in the van. My body was. My mind, meanwhile, had jumped over to watch through Faultline's eyes. At least this time it was at the other woman's invitation. Faultline wanted me to watch what happened, both to see how it was done and to provide backup if necessary. It allowed her to know someone was watching her back in a way that was completely undetectable.

At that particular moment, Faultline was being escorted by the secretary (yeah, a supervillain with his own personal secretary), into the office of her employer. She announced Faultline by name, then left the room, closing the doors after her.

On the other side of the ornate, extremely clean office, a short man, barely over five feet in height, stood with his back to the door, gazing out through the window at the city below. His voice was filled with loathing, a disgust that was almost a physical manifestation. "Chaos. Do you see it out there? Do you smell it?" He inhaled before turning to face Faultline, revealing a perfectly tailored and pristine white suit. The only thing that set him apart as a cape was the ornate metal mask.

"Yes, it's very chaotic out there," Faultline confirmed before lifting the bag that she had carried in. "One forcefield generator created by Trinket, right on time."

"Down to the minute," Accord was obviously pleased by that fact. "Your team has performed admirably. I find myself wishing that the job had been for myself."

Still holding the bag, Faultline asked carefully, "It wasn't for you?"

Crossing away from the window, Accord accepted the bag from her with a ginger grip before setting it next to the desk. "I'm afraid not. I'm merely the go-between in this venture, as the true buyer wished to remain anonymous. Citrine has already ensured that the agreed upon payment has been sent to the account you provided. That will be all." It was not a question. Accord wasn't a man who accepted changes in his schedules or plans.

With a nod, Faultline pivoted on her heel and began to walk out. Just before she did, their eyes met and I was abruptly watching her leave through his eyes.

Whoops. Great, now I had to drag my attention out of here. Maybe I could still connect myself to Elle and-

Before I could think further than that, the door opened once again mere seconds after Faultline had left. A pair of figures entered, male and female. The former stepped to the middle of the room. "They have delivered what I asked for?"

"Yes," Accord nodded toward the bag. "The item you requested is here. And my payment?"

"Your assistant has it right now," the other man replied.

Accord glanced at the computer on his desk, where a message from Citrine confirmed that fact. Then he nodded once again. "Then you may take the item."

The other man nodded to his companion, who ran forward to grab the bag, cackling happily at the sight of what she found there.

"Taylor?" A hand shook me, and my attention abruptly snapped back into the van where Elle was staring at me with obvious concern. "Too quiet."

"Taylor, weren't you with me?" Faultline was frowning as well. "You weren't responding, so we thought something might be wrong."

Wrong? Yes, something was very wrong. It had been one thing when I had thought that we were simply stealing some random bit of tinker equipment for Accord. But it hadn't been for him. The device we had stolen had been for the people who had come in afterward. People I recognized. One of whom was supposed to be dead.

But what the _**hell**_ did Kaiser and Bakuda want with some super special forcefield generator?

 **Interlude 8A – Battery**

 _ **Sunday, April 24th**_

The steady and repetitive whirr-thump of a well-used treadmill filled the room as its sole occupant continued to try in vain to outrun her own worries and concerns. Where that failed, Samantha O'Connell worked to deafen herself to the thoughts through the loud, powerful, and mind numbing music that filled her ears through the headphones that she wore. She ran in place,pushing herself further than usual, trying to forget everything that had been bothering her these past few days... and years.

Better known to the public at large as Battery of the Protectorate, Sam (as she was more commonly referred to by her teammates in order to differentiate her from Prism, who shared her same first name), should have been feeling pretty good. Though the brawl that had taken place in the middle of the city a few days earlier hadn't gone _perfectly,_ it had gone better for the good guys than the bad ones. Lung had been completely shut down by a new cape that appeared to be on their side, a massive number of non-cape thugs from the Empire and Coil's upstart group had been arrested, **and** Fenja, Victor, and Cricket were locked up. Combining that with the capture of Skidmark and Benjamins by those bounty hunters the Travelers, and the Brigade bringing in Squealer not too long before that, and the last couple of weeks had _technically_ been extremely productive for the good guys. Hell, just the news from the Brigade (which they were supposed to keep utterly secret) that their two teammates _weren't_ dead after all should have been cause for celebration.

Except it had also been just as productive, if not more so, for the bad ones. Not only were Laserdream and Archive apparently alive (though still missing), but Kaiser was apparently just fine as well. The death of the Empire's leader had been one bright spot in the last couple of weeks, and now it seemed that the whole thing was nothing more than a ruse so that he could do... whatever he'd been doing with the two young heroes. The thought itself made her shudder and run faster, trying to drown it out.

On top of that, the rest of the gangs weren't exactly falling down in defeat. Lung had a whole new group of capes to help him, Coil was fielding more mercenaries than they'd thought he had even _before_ they had arrested a bunch of them, and what remained of the Merchants still had more than fifty hostages out there somewhere with no way of finding them. Hostages that they looked to the Protectorate to save **.** But now, even after the relative progress of the last altercation, they still hadn't come any closer to locating them. Skidmark had apparently been useless, as not even Armsmaster had been able to get the information out of him, because that information didn't exist. Skidmark had gone as far as to make sure he didn't **know** where the other half of the hostages were, for precisely this reason.

Then there was the _real_ reason that Sam was in here, pounding away at the treadmill. The real reason that she had been spending so much of her time locked away where she didn't have to talk to anyone. Anne Barnes. The gargoyle wasn't a Case 53. She had a name. She had an identity, memories, a _life._ And she remembered all of it. She remembered her father bringing home a vial that was supposed to give her troubled little sister super powers. She remembered wrestling with him for control of it, and drinking it herself at the last second before he would have torn it out of her grasp, before he could give whatever it was to her little sister. Anne hadn't believed that it would give her powers. She'd thought that her father had bought something off the street and was going to either talk or trick her little sister into drinking it. She'd taken the option away from him, expecting to end up drugged or sick.

Instead, she'd become a cape. A heavily mutated one, so altered that everyone had simply assumed she was one of those amnesiac Case 53's. The fact that she remembered drinking a vial that was meant to give powers, well... of those relative few who knew about it, most were divided into two camps. One smaller group thought that the girl was right, that she had taken something that gave powers. There had been rumors of such a thing for years now, after all. The other, larger group, considered the vial a placebo. According to them, the stress of learning what her father meant to do, struggling with him, swallowing what was _said_ to grant powers, would have been enough for a standard trigger event. They insisted that getting powers out of a vial was a pipe dream, a myth that was spread by people looking to cash in on the naivety of people with too much money and not enough common sense.

Sam knew they were wrong. There _were_ vials that granted powers. That was how she'd gotten hers, after all. And the thought of that coming out, of her secret being exposed to her friends, her family, her _**husband,**_ was enough to drive her in here to work out for hours upon hours, trying to clear her mind.

Catching sight of the door opening in the corner of the room, Sam glanced that way to see Ethan stepping in with a hand raised to catch her attention. Just seeing him while knowing how many lies she had told over the years, was enough to make her heart drop into her stomach.

Forcing those thoughts away, Sam hit the button on the treadmill, slowing it to a gradual stop before stepping off. Her hand found the MP3 player clipped to her shorts and she shut down the music while tugging the headphones off with her other hand. Somehow, she summoned up a smile. "Hey."

Ethan embraced her, chuckling a little while lifting her off the floor. "Hey yourself, Puppy. You okay?" His voice betrayed his concern, making her flinch. Clearly he'd noticed how sleepless she'd been lately.

Sam nodded, returning the embrace tightly. God, she loved him. For a man she had started out loathing so thoroughly, Ethan was her life now. Their relationship may not have started out (or progressed) in the traditional fashion, but it worked for them. She had never regretted marrying him, for all that he tended to drive her insane at times. He could be an immature jerk, but he was **her** immature jerk.

"I'm okay, just haven't slept much," she said quietly. That much was true at least. She just left out why she wasn't sleeping. Because she was a liar. The thought made her flinch again. Damn it, she wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to tell him how she'd really gotten her powers, and the things she'd done as 'favors' since then in order to pay back the people who had given them to her. Yet as much as it killed her to lie to the man she loved, telling him the truth would have been worse. Because that would make him a target for those very same people, and the **last** thing that Sam was going to do was paint a target on Ethan's back just to ease her own guilt. She'd live with it, if it meant protecting him from them.

"Armsy wants all hands on deck to talk with the Barnes girl," Ethan explained. "The docs have finally released her from all their studies, so he wants to give her the full court press recruitment speech."

"All of us?" Sam echoed with a bit of surprise.

"Yeah," Ethan chuckled again. "Something about a united front to show her what she'd be getting into. I dunno, but he's pretty insistent. Said something about not losing another useful cape to the Brigade."

Sam's eyes rolled at that. "He does remember that the Brigade are actually our allies, not our rivals, right? Also, that that new member of theirs is **still** missing along with Laserdream."

"But not actually dead," Ethan pointed out before stepping back with a gesture. "Which is still a positive. Anyway, come on, I thought we could change together and head up there."

In spite of herself and her worry, Sam smirked at him knowingly. "Oh, is that right? We could just change together, huh? And exactly how long did you allot for 'changing', hmm?"

He was a good enough actor to look vaguely offended by that. "Hey, Armsy said to hurry. I think I'm-"

In mid-sentence, the man froze completely. He stood there, motionless and silent in mid-retort, mouth open with that vaguely cocky smirk trying to break over top of his pretense of offense.

"Eth-" Sam started before sensing movement behind her. Spinning around, she blurted, "You."

Three figures stood behind her. Well, two stood. The third, a partially translucent shape, floated a bit off the ground. That final figure paid no attention to her, his gaze fixed instead on the almost comically oversized pocket watch that he held. One ghost-like hand held the watch's second hand, preventing it from moving. Not for the first time, Sam wondered just how aware the ghost and others like him were.

The remaining two figures were both women. The first, a dark-haired female dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and fedora, spoke up. "We assumed you would prefer to have this discussion in private."

Feeling her anger and frustration at this entire situation mount with each passing second, Sam shot a look back at her frozen husband before demanding, "What did you do? What's wrong with Ethan?"

"Your mate is as well as he ever was." It was the second woman who had spoken up, drawing Sam's attention to her. Unlike the brunette in her suit and hat, her own hair was blonde, and she wore gleaming gold and sky blue armor, with a cloth skirt adorned with golden chains. Her long, thick hair was pulled into a braid, and unlike her partner, she wore a cloth mask that hid her identity. But what stood out the most were the large, pure white wings that she held tucked against her back.

Why? Sam had wondered before. Of the two women, why did one wear a mask while the other didn't? Did the blonde have an actual public identity to protect? If she saw the imposing figure sans mask, would she recognize her? What was she protecting with that mask that the other woman didn't need to?

"What Valkyrie means," the brunette went on while gazing at her, "is that her ghost has simply encased the three of us into a time bubble. When we leave, time will resume and your husband will be none the wiser. As I said, we believed that this was a conversation you would prefer to have in private."

Interesting. Sam's eyes flicked to the blonde. It was the first time she had heard a name for either of the women. Giving that much away, what did it mean? Had the woman in the suit named her companion on purpose, or unthinkingly? From her previous handful of encounters, the former seemed likely.

"You're here about Anne," Sam turned her attention back to the woman in the suit. "She's telling the truth about the vial, isn't she? If you think I'm going to help you shut her up, I swear to Scion I wi—"

There was a flash of movement. Before she could focus on what was happening, there was a hand around her throat. A foot kicked her ankle out from under her, and she found herself falling hard on her back. The blonde, Valkyrie, was kneeling beside her, an iron grip on her neck to cut off her breath. When she spoke, it was not with a single voice, but with dozens in concert. " _ **Do not speak that name."**_ There was a righteous fury there, a palpable anger and hate that filled the room with its viciousness.

The woman in the suit was there, laying a hand on the blonde's shoulder. After a moment of silence, Valkyrie released her and stood up. The brunette offered Sam a hand. "Forgive her. But I do suggest you refrain from speaking the name of the golden man." When Sam continued to squint without taking the offered hand, the woman breathed out. "Relax, Samantha. We have no desire to silence Anne Barnes. If we spent the energy it would require to prevent **all** rumors of our existence from leaking into the world, there would be no time remaining to do anything else. We mean her no harm."

Finally getting to her feet, _without_ accepting the hand up, Sam shook her head in disbelief. "Then why are you here? If this isn't about Anne, what do you want?" She let her gaze flick between the pair.

"You misunderstand," the brunette replied. "This is about the girl. It just isn't about silencing or harming her. No, quite the opposite, in fact." She smiled faintly. "We want you to tell her the truth."

Sam blinked once, then again, certain she had heard that completely wrong. "Excuse me?"

"Exactly as I said," the brunette affirmed. "Tell her the truth. Tell her how you gained your own powers, what you had to go through to get them. Tell her how we contacted you, where you had to go, how much time it took. Tell her everything about gaining your powers. Confide in her."

Squinting suspiciously, Sam shook her head, trying to understand. "Why do you want me to do that?"

"Her gifts would make Anne Barnes a valuable addition to the Protectorate," the brunette answered calmly. "But she needs a reason to stay. A confidante, one who shares such a secret with her and promises to help the girl with anything she needs, would go a long way toward supplying that reason."

"And what makes you think she won't just go telling everyone about what I say?" Sam demanded.

The woman in the suit simply smiled faintly in response to that. "Trust me," she intoned, sounding confident in a way that Sam had never understood. "The girl will respect your wish for privacy. We wish for her to stay in the Protectorate, and this is the easiest way to ensure that happens."

"So that's what you want me to do?" Sam frowned, still suspicious. "Confide in her, be her friend?"

"Indeed," the brunette gave a single nod. "We will consider this the last of the favors that you owe."

Surprised by that, Sam looked quickly from one woman to the other. "And that's **all.** That's the only thing I need to do. Confide in her, be her friend. I don't have to... do anything else?"

"You are a very suspicious person, Mrs. O'Connell," the brunette replied casually. "Yes, that is all. Relax, this is a good thing. Keeping the alliance of Anne Barnes will be a boon for this city."

"But what does it give _you_?" Sam insisted flatly. "What do you get out of this? Why do you care?"

"Mrs. O'Connell," the brunette answered in a firm tone. "We wish for the Protectorate to be successful. Any reasons we may have beyond that are our concern and not yours. Do you accept this deal or not? Let me be clear when I say that our next request will not be as simple as this one, should you refuse."

Sam thought quickly, but couldn't find any immediate problem with what she was being asked. It would be dangerous, but if this was all they were asking... it was a better deal than she'd expected for the third and final favor that the mysterious organization to ask of her. "I'll do it."

"Good," the woman in the suit smiled again, stepping back to where her companion stood. "I suggest you return to your previous position before Valkyrie removes the time stasis. Your husband might have a few questions otherwise."

After giving the pair another searching, uncertain look for a moment, Sam nodded slightly and resumed her place in front of Ethan. She put herself back in as close of a position as she could. "I'm r-"

"-being the nice and responsible one this time." Ethan finished his earlier sentence abruptly, then blinked. "Oh, sorry, Puppy, were you saying something?"

Hesitating, Sam glanced over her shoulder to find the corner empty. She painted a smile on her face while looking back to her husband. "No. I'm ready. Let's go recruit a new teammate."

* * *

"Look, I told you guys everything I know. I really have to get out of here now." The hollow-echo voice blurted out loud, filling the unused office on one of the top floors of the Protectorate building where the six current members of the Protectorate had chosen to meet with Anne Barnes.

The heavily mutated girl herself stood impatiently squinting at all of them. The rags of her clothes had been replaced by an oversized hospital gown. "I sat through all your tests. I let your doctors examine me until pretty sure they know my insides and outsides better than _**I**_ do, especially now. I did what you wanted because you said I'd be free to go. Now can I go or not?"

"You can," Armsmaster confirmed. "But we'd like you to wait for just another minute. Give us a chance to... talk about your future."

Sam suppressed a smile in spite of herself. Recruiting a new cape with the kind of power that this girl had displayed would be an incredible boon for the Protectorate leader's reputation, and he had hardly been able to keep his eagerness in check the last few days. Now, he was all but openly salivating.

"My future?" Anne frowned. "What do you mean?" Her gaze flicked around suspiciously and she took a step back toward the window. Both pairs of wings stretched out, a seemingly subconscious attempt to look bigger than she was. "I told you what I know. I told you what my father did. It's not my fault if you don't believe me. I've got to get out there. I have to find my sister, I have to tell her what he's-"

Prism spoke up. "Your sister hasn't been home." When Anne's gaze shot to her, she went on. "Whether you're right about the vial or not, it doesn't sound like your sister should be there. So we've had someone watch the house, but she hasn't come in. Your mother was home for a couple hours a few days ago, but then she left again. We haven't seen her since. Your father hasn't left the house, and no one else has gone in."

"You... you kept an eye on the house?" Anne frowned again, her suspicions obviously raised. "Why?"

It was Armsmaster who replied, "As she said, whether or not you're right about the source of your powers, the idea of a father forcing his daughter to take an unknown vial is dangerous. We intended to bring the girl here for you, but she never showed up. She's been in school, but she disappears after that." He shook his head. "We believe she's staying with a friend, though we haven't been able to devote the resources to track her down. But she does seem safe enough, and she's clearly avoiding your father."

The gargoyle-like face was hard to read, but Battery thought that she looked relieved. "Emma..." Straightening, Anne visibly shook off that relief. "I have to find her. I have to talk to her."

"Not a bad idea," Dauntless opined. "But there's a better way to take care of that."

"A... better way?" Anne echoed.

Shooting a look that was clearly a barely restrained glare at the other man, Armsmaster interrupted. "Yes. You went after Lung by instinct. You barely had your powers and you still dove right in to stop him. Why?"

There was something in that gargoyle face again, a hint of terrible anger. "The ABB broke my family," she said flatly. "I wanted to break them. I _**will**_ break them. I want the ABB dismantled and gone."

"Then join us," Armsmaster's voice was firm. "You could be an incredibly powerful cape, Miss Barnes. But you need training. You need allies. We can give you that training and be your allies. You want help for your sister? You'll get it. You want protection and a safe place where your... condition won't stop you from being given custody of Emma? You'll get that too. We will protect you both, and train _you_ to stop the ABB from hurting anyone else."

"You... want me to join you?" Anne sounded simultaneously surprised and overwhelmed. Her gaze moved out over the rest of the uniformed Protectorate team. "I thought you were all here as a show of force, to stop me from leaving."

"No," Armsmaster shook his head. "We want to show you what you'll be joining. We want you to be a part of this, a part of our team, Miss Barnes."

"Can..." Anne hesitated, looking uncertain. Or at least as uncertain as the nearly six-feet tall gargoyle could look. "Can I think about it?"

"Of course," Armsmaster turned away after giving a sharp nod. "We'll leave you alone for a few minutes. Take your time and let us know when you're ready to talk again." He and the rest of the team started for the door.

She was wavering, Battery knew. Somehow, the woman in the suit had been right. Left on its own, something would happen to convince Anne not to stay with them. She needed another push, something to make her trust them enough to join the team.

Remaining where she was while that ran through her mind, Sam hesitated before looking at the other girl. "Do you mind if I... stay and talk to you for a minute?"

"Oh," Anne blinked at that before shrugging. Her wings rose and fell with the gesture. "I guess."

Both Armsmaster and Ethan gave her searching looks, but Battery just shook her head at them. "Private talk."

Neither looked happy about leaving her alone, though they didn't audibly object. Sam closed the door after them, waiting a moment before turning to face the girl.

"I want to tell you a story," she started after a few seconds of silence. "... about how I got my powers."

 **Interlude 8B – Greed**

 _ **August 28th, 2009**_

With a long, aggravated groan, fourteen-year-old Elsa Levi hauled open the back door of the black SUV and tossed her two suitcases into the rear-most cargo area before pretty much throwing herself over the middle seat. Lying face down, the blonde teenager mumbled, "Can we just go, please?"

Gordon Willis, the elderly man who had served as her family's driver and assistant for as many years as Elsa could remember shook his head. There was a note of gentle teasing in his English accented voice. "I'd quite like to, ma'am, but your legs aren't all the way inside. I'd close it up anyhow and leave 'em behind, but your mum was quite insistent about my bringing _all_ of you back, not just the top half."

Raising her head to squint over her shoulder at the man, Elsa snorted doubtfully. "Yeah, sure, like mom even remembered that I was supposed to come home today. Or ever noticed that I was gone at all." Still, she sat up in the seat, tucking her legs inside the vehicle. None of this was Gordon's fault.

"Oh yes, she did, Miss Levi." Gordon insisted. Closing the door, he walked around to the front driver's side and settled himself into the seat there. After starting the engine up once more, he continued. "Your mother surely did miss you. Why, just this morning she told me to make sure you was fed properly."

For a second, Elsa stopped to think. Gordon didn't lie. Not about this sort of thing. Both of them knew that her parents, important people that they were, paid their daughter little mind unless she started acting out. He _would_ however, stretch the truth or leave key facts out if he thought it would make her feel better. Thinking about what he had said, she made a face. "Let me guess, she told you to make sure I was fed because she forgot I wasn't even home, that I haven't been home for a month."

The silence from the elderly man spoke wonders, and Elsa turned to look out the window. Right, at least her mother had remembered she _had_ a daughter. Her dad often seemed to forget that entirely. Both left most of the day to day raising of their child to her teachers and the household staff, like Gordon.

"Your parents mean well, Miss Levi," the man insisted firmly. "They just stretch themselves too thin sometimes, that's all." When Elsa had no response, he pressed on. "But a month at camp, that must have been quite exciting. Are you sure you've said your goodbyes to everyone you want to?"

The question made Elsa flinch a bit. There was a girl she wanted to say goodbye to, but she'd already fucked up every other interaction with Taylor Hebert, so why would a farewell be any different?

Taylor Hebert. Elsa had known for almost a year by that point that she was attracted to girls rather than boys, another secret she kept from her parents. But until that summer, most of her crushes had been women on television or in movies. She hadn't even realized that she had a _type_ until the first day of camp, when she'd met the scrawny, geeky girl with the amazing hair that just kept babbling incessantly.

Meeting Taylor should have been accompanied by lights shining down from the sky and orchestral music. Elsa had been absolutely certain that it was going to be the most wonderful summer of her life. No parents to forget she existed, and there was the delightfully babble-mouthed Taylor and her beautiful hair. Yeah, most would say the girl was average at best otherwise, but to Elsa, she was gorgeous. The summer was going to be perfect. She would spend time with Taylor, they would become friends, and that would evolve into something a lot more important, that would last beyond the summer.

Except it hadn't. In fact, they hadn't even become friends. Elsa, as it turned out, was absolute _shit_ at the whole friend thing. She'd had no idea how to go about it. Her solution had been to show Taylor how great she could be, doing her best to ace every event they got into. She'd even worn her brand new bikini, hoping to draw the other girl's eye and at least find out that she (hopefully) liked the view.

Instead, everything she had said and done had just driven Taylor further away. She sucked so badly at trying to make friends that she'd actively made the other girl dislike her. No matter what she tried, it came off badly. Every attempt she made toward forming a connection with the girl just made her look more and more selfish and conceited, even when that was the _opposite_ of what she was trying to do! Then she would get frustrated and blurt something out that she didn't mean, making things even worse.

Eyes watching her expression in the rearview mirror, Gordon softened his voice while changing the subject to something that he obviously thought was more innocuous rather than make make her answer. "Did you try your hand at that rowboat we saw when I dropped you off?" While he spoke, the man expertly guided the van down the old road that led away from the camp and to the freeway.

Folding her arms tight over her chest, Elsa felt her face flush with embarrassment at the memory. Sure, she'd gone on the boats. They all had, rowing across the lake to reach the waterfall area on the other side. That was where she had tried to show off for Taylor again by sliding down one of the rougher portions of the falls than the others were using. And what happened? Her new bikini caught on the rock, stretching it horribly and ruining the thing so that it wouldn't even stay on.

But even the giggles of every _other_ girl there hadn't made her feel as bad as when she'd strayed near the payphones later on and heard Taylor telling someone named Emma about it while laughing.

That was only a few days into camp. Things had gone progressively worse, and now all Elsa wanted to do was go home. She didn't blame Taylor. She didn't blame anyone. She had fucked this whole thing up all by herself. This was supposed to have been one of the best summers of her life. Instead, because she was incapable of actually _expressing herself_ the way she meant to, it had been one of the worst.

Turning to look over his shoulder at her, Gordon's face softened. "Tell you what, Miss Levi, why don't I take you to that nice ice cream shop that you like? I'm quite certain you'll-"

"Gordon!" Elsa blurted, eyes widening at the view in front of them. "Watch out!" The road curved sharply in front of them, with a steep decline beyond the narrow bend.

The man tried to jerk the wheel, but the vehicle slid on the gravel, skidding right off the edge of the drop. Elsa's scream filled the air as the SUV flipped over several times. The world spun and she would have been flung free if the seatbelt hadn't held her painfully tight against the seat. Her head was jerked to the side to smack into the window. She heard something shatter, and then blackness overtook her.

Waking a short time later, Elsa groaned painfully while opening her eyes. She found the view disorienting, realizing belatedly that the car was upside down and a bit sideways. The entire front end and part of the back had caved in entirely. The top had been crushed inward as well, leaving the girl trapped in the small, confined space of the back seat. She could see into the front where the back of her driver's motionless head was visible, but the hole was too small for her to fit through. The same went for what remained of the nearby window. It had been crushed inward, leaving only a very narrow opening through which she could see gravel and what looked like train tracks that the mangled and utterly demolished SUV had finally slid to a stop on top of once its violent plunge had ended.

"Gordon... Gordon..." Elsa shifted her weight, wincing in pain as she reached a hand into the front to shake the man. "Wake up." She picked herself up, straightening off the seat to peer into the front seat.

Dead. Gordon was quite thoroughly dead. The shattering noise she had heard just before passing out had been a thick tree branch crashing through the windshield to impale the man through the chest.

With a choked sob, the blonde girl twisted away and promptly threw up on the floor. Tears blurred her vision, and she was only distracted from her anguished grief by the sound of a distant whistle.

A train whistle. Eyes suddenly widening, Elsa spun back to look out the hole that remained within the small, cramped area she was stuck inside of. Leaning as close as she could, the girl peered down along the track. The train wasn't visible yet, but she could hear its whistle again as it approached.

"No, no, no, no!" Panicking, the girl tried to shove herself through the opening. She wasn't that big, but the hole was _far_ too small. All she managed to do was cut herself a bit on the jagged metal.

"I'm here!" She screamed out the opening. "I'm in here!" Still, the sound of the approaching train drew nearer. It was getting closer far too quickly. They wouldn't be able to stop in time, if they even noticed the wrecked vehicle on the tracks in time to try. She was going to die in here. Die, forgotten and alone, the only real friend she had impaled on a branch in the front seat.

The world went black, and Elsa Levi saw... wonders.

When her eyes opened again, the train was in sight. It was so close that Elsa knew she had only seconds before her life would **literally** be over. It was coming so fast. The speed of the train was, quite abruptly, fascinating to her. Instinctively, she knew both its velocity and direction. She knew how fast it was going, the speed of the train nearly a physical manifestation. It felt like she could just... grab that speed and move it...

With a loud, high pitched scream of tearing metal, the crushed SUV abruptly tore itself off the tracks and flew clear of the train. Elsa screamed once more, but the danger was past. The train had ground to a sudden halt, while the broken vehicle itself had been flung a good hundred yards away.

There it sat, while its sole living occupant gradually realized just how much her world had changed.

* * *

 _ **March 17th, 2010**_

The glass window shattered as Elsa's body was thrown through it to crash into the shelves of the antique store. She rolled on the floor, wincing at the pain from the half dozen lacerations that the glass had given her. Not for the first time, the now-fifteen-year-old rethought her decision to go about this hero thing solo rather than joining the nearest Wards team. But doing so would have meant telling her parents the truth.

Besides, Mansfield wasn't the hell hole that Brockton Bay, to the north, was. She should have been able to handle most of the crime that happened here in her hometown just fine. And she had, for most of the past year. Ever since she'd decided that the best way of honoring the deceased Gordon was to be the kind of person that he would have wanted her to be, Elsa had been doing her best to help people.

Mansfield was a tourist trap of a town. During the busy seasons, the town was several times as large and populated as it was during the off season, which meant that there were a _lot_ of people that were just passing through. They tended to act up a lot, but for the most part, Elsa had been able to handle it.

She called herself Momentum because the name Velocity had already been taken by that hero up in Brockton Bay, and she had run out of other ideas.

For most of the year, she had done well enough. There had been some rough moments while she worked out exactly how her powers worked, but eventually she had realized that she was capable of _either_ transferring or copying the momentum of anything within her line of sight to either herself or any inanimate object within that line of sight. That momentum would last until she either lost sight of the object that she was transferring it _to,_ or when she stopped focusing on it. She could look at a speeding truck and then either transfer its speed, which would stop the truck in its tracks, or copy the speed, which allowed the truck to keep going. If she watched the truck going sixty miles per hour and copied its speed to herself, she could then _run_ sixty miles an hour until she chose to stop. Alternatively, she could instead copy or transfer that momentum into another object, sending it in any direction she wished with that speed, regardless of the weight or mass of the object.

That kind of power had been enough for a long time, even working by herself. At least, it had until tonight. Now she was in over her head, and the girl who called herself Momentum wasn't sure how she was going to survive.

The Sins had come to town. Or three of them had, anyway. Elsa had seen Wrath and Envy amusing themselves with a few of the local police. The thought of what they were doing made the girl struggle back to her feet, ignoring the pain running through her body.

She came face to face with the _other_ member of the Sins that had come to visit. Greed. The tall broad-shouldered man stood just on the other side of the shattered window where he had thrown Elsa. He wore a costume consisting mainly of brown rags covered in dried blood, and his mask was a hard plate affair that left his eyes exposed.

Elsa had tried to hit those eyes as soon as she'd realized the kind of situation she was dealing with. He'd rewarded her effort by pitching her through the window. And now it looked like he was ready to finish the job.

"Get away from me!" She shouted, grabbing the nearest object she could find, a small lamp. Clutching it in one hand, she threw it at the man, wishing the whole time that she'd said something more heroic and brave. But then, saying the wrong thing was pretty much her forte.

The man simply batted the lamp away, but that was okay. It wasn't supposed to hurt him anyway. Instead, Elsa copied the momentum that she had given it with the throw, transferring it to her own body to propel herself up and backwards away from the man's lunging grasp.

It didn't help. Even as Elsa thought briefly that she could escape, an explosion of fire filled the air where the man had been. She barely had time to feel the flames behind her as well before his hand struck her in the back, knocking her to the floor with a scream.

She couldn't do this. She couldn't beat him. He had too many powers, too many ways that he could smack her aside. A whimper escaped the girl while she rolled over, scrambling up and forward. Her mind was focused purely on escaping from the man.

He was playing with her. That much was clear as Elsa managed to pitch herself through the broken window and back onto the street beyond. Multiple cars lay overturned and burning on the pavement, and Elsa looked desperately for an escape route. Instead, she spotted a pistol lying discarded on the ground, next to the dead policeman that she had been trying to help when she got into this whole mess.

She barely had time to grab the pistol off the ground before before the man appeared in another explosion of fire. Lifting the gun, she pulled the trigger reflexively, shooting at the monster.

Greed shrugged off the attack, and before the girl could do anything else, he had stormed forward, grabbing her around the throat. With a harsh, ugly laugh, he hoisted the girl off the ground.

She dangled, helpless in his grip while his hand closed tighter with each passing second. Elsa's vision began to go dark as she hung there, incapable of fighting back or even escaping. She was done. She was going to die. The unhelpful gun almost slipped from her grasp.

No. No. Through her dimming vision, Elsa caught sight of a broken chunk of pavement lying a few feet away. Struggling, every motion a work of herculean effort, she lifted the pistol just enough to bring it within her line of sight. With a choked, desperate whine, she managed to pull the trigger one last time.

The bullet shot out of the gun. At the same time, Elsa focused her power on it for that split second, catching the momentum and transferring it.

The discarded chunk of pavement _**leapt**_ off the ground, hurling itself with utterly blinding speed straight at its target.

Greed's head essentially **disintegrated** under the blow. His body collapsed, and Elsa found herself lying on the ground, bloodied, bruised, but alive.

 _Well. That didn't go very well, did it?_

 _Oooh, oooh, girl body, girl body! We're back in a girl's body!_

 _You fucking cunt! You stupid piece of shit, who do you think you are?! What the hell did you do to my body?! No, fuck you! You don't get this, you worthless shit!_

 _We tried to tell you to just finish her off. You wouldn't listen._

 _Eeeeeeeee, bloood! Our head went splooot! Do it again, do it again, do it again!_

"Shut... shut up!" Rolling over, Elsa put her hands against her ears and looked around for the source of the voices.

The street was empty, save for a single figure. Envy stood there, gazing at Elsa with an expression of curiosity bordering on amusement.

"Well, well, well..." The woman almost purred the words. "Looks like Two didn't have things quite as handled as he thought, hmm? You in there, big guy? Paling around with all your little friends now?"

"G-get away from me." Elsa stammered, trying to shake the continuous voices out of her head.

"Oh dear child," Envy shook her head. "You misunderstand. We don't mean you any harm. Not anymore. You see, you killed him. That means you're one of us now."

"Never... never be one of you," Elsa spat the words, shoving her hands tighter against her ears while all the voices that seemed to be coming from nowhere began to scream at her. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

In the wake of her desperate plea, Envy chuckled. "Sorry, babe. You don't really have a choice. The man you killed, he was just the latest in a long line that started with the old Teeth gang. They called themselves Butcher before Pride got ahold of him and turned him into the second part of his little gang. Well, at least I think it was a him back then. It's kind of hard to keep track."

"I don't... I don't understand..." Elsa shook her head, whimpering a little in spite of herself. "Why won't they stop talking? Why won't they shut up? Leave me alone, please... please just leave me alone."

"Ain't gonna happen," Envy replied while putting her hand down to stroke Elsa's masked face with what almost sounded like pity. "You're one of us now, kid.

"Welcome to the club."

* * *

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

She tried not to kill. It almost never ended up working. The voices yelled at her, tortured her mentally until she obeyed them, driven mad by their influence, their rage and violence. Try as she might, Elsa was only ever able to stop herself from killing innocents for a short time and in rare occasions. It was a constant, steady struggle that she usually lost. Most of the time, she almost felt like more of a passenger in her own body than the voices were.

For months she had held out, resisting the voices demands at the cost of her own sanity. It had taken all of her willpower, all the strength she had, to avoid being the monster they wanted her to be.

But even that had been temporary, particularly with the other Sins around. They cultured the anger in her, forcing her into situations where she had to kill to survive, to avoid giving the powers that Greed contained to anyone else. And in doing so, her own morality consistently fell. It became harder and harder to hold onto who she had been. She lost herself, often going along with what the others said in a dazed, almost zombie-like state. Soon, she was killing just because they told her to, killing to make the voices shut up and leave her alone. Killing for a few minutes of peace. Killing to cling, however weakly, to her own mind. Now, a little over a year since she had been taken by the Sins, since she had _**become**_ one of the Sins, and the voices had made her kill more people than she could even remember.

But no, she couldn't pass that blame. It was her. Elsa was too weak to stop the Greed powers from killing, too pathetic to prevent all the other personalities and memories trapped in her head from driving her to murder, maim, and ruin the lives of people who didn't deserve it.

In spite of her powers, she was weak, and the price for that weakness was everyone who died because she couldn't control herself. Their blood, their... pain was on her hands. Because she was evil. She had given up, too weak to stop herself from obeying the whims of the evil _**things**_ inside her head. They demanded she kill, and she did. She obeyed them, too weary and broken after this many months of their influence to refuse.

"Brockton Bay."

The voice interrupted her ugly internal musings, and it took Elsa a minute to realize that it was coming from somewhere other than her own head. The voices _**there**_ argued constantly, bitching about each other and leaving her absolutely no privacy or time to think. They knew every thought she had, mocked her every insecurity, crushing all of her hopes for escape, for redemption.

There would be no redemption for her. She was a monster.

Turning finally, she focused on the source of the voice. Envy. "What?"

Smiling easily at her, Envy repeated, "Brockton Bay. Have you seen the news? That whole city's practically going down in flames. The local gangs were just in another all-out brawl a few days ago."

"So?" Elsa kept her voice short. She hated interacting with any of the Sins. It just reminded her that she was just as bad as they were.

"So..." Envy trailed off before gesturing back the way she had come. "One thinks that might be where our lost little birdie went off to. He wants someone to check it out."

"Let Six do it," Elsa spat back at her. "It's her damn protégé." Still, something in the back of her mind tickled. Brockton Bay. That was where... a girl... an important girl... the last one she'd let herself actually like before focusing on her tragic cape career.

Taylor. Taylor Hebert. That was where Taylor lived.

"Oh Six is going," Envy confirmed. "But you're going too. One wants you and all those voices in your head to stay with her. Unless, of course, you've got a problem with that?"

For a moment, Elsa said nothing. The thought of looking up Taylor Hebert, of experiencing one more moment of happiness at the sight of the girl, even if nothing would ever come of it, was too much to ignore or resist. Even if it instantly set the other voices catcalling and screaming about obscene things.

"No," she said finally. "No problem."

She'd go to Brockton Bay with Six. They could look around, and while they were there, she could have a glance at her old crush. That was all she wanted, just to look up Taylor Hebert to see how she was doing. Just knowing that the girl she'd had such a crush on was okay might be enough to give Elsa the strength to fight back for a little bit longer, to resist the influence of the voices on more time.

It would be nice to see Taylor again, to remember the time of her life before everything had gone so horribly wrong, when the so-called 'worst summer of her life' had just been about failing to connect with her summer camp crush.

Surely nothing bad could come from that.

 **Interlude 8C – Hax**

 _ **December 12th, 2002**_

Two small figures crept over the immaculate green grass in the backyard of an old colonial style house. Their movements were slow and deliberate, each ordinary nightly sound drawing the attention of the children as thoroughly as headlights illuminating deer. At three in the morning, monsters seemed to lurk behind every shadow.

"I can't see." The complaining whisper from the male child was followed almost immediately by the flicker of a small flashlight, illuminating the grass ahead of them and showing the way to the gate.

"Shhh, put out the light." Ten-year-old Cherie Vasil whispered almost frantically at her younger brother. "Jean-Paul, put out the light. Put it out, put it out, put it out." She tried to grab for it.

Resisting, eight-year-old Jean-Paul twisted away while hissing back at his sister, "No, Cherie. I can't see. I'm gonna trip. That'll wake **him** up." His voice rose slightly at the last before he stopped himself.

"You'll wake him up with the light," Cherie insisted, voice as low as she could make it while still getting her insistence across. Her eyes darted up to the window that belonged to their father, at least for the moment, until he got tired of his current conquest and moved himself and the rest of his 'family' on to another house in another neighborhood. Between the authorities that were constantly watching out for any sign of her daddy and his own boredom, they never stayed in one place for very long.

Realizing belatedly that the more they fought over the light, the more likely their father really _was_ to wake up, both siblings stopped by mutual, silent agreement. Eyes on the darkened room above them, the pair slowly moved to the gate. Jean-Paul kept the light off until they were there, then pointed it at the latch, cupping his other hand over the beam to keep it from spreading far.

With agonizing slowness, Cherie gradually lifted the latch of the gate. Flinching at every squeak of the metal, she pulled it all the way up, then pushed the gate open just far enough for the two of them to slip out. Afraid that the gate would slam open if left the way it was, she took the time to close and relatch it.

Although this was the third time the two of them had snuck out like this together in the past two weeks, **this** was the most important one. This time, they weren't coming back. Anxious and worried, both of them still stood on the grass and stared up at the window of the house their father had taken over for over a minute, each convinced that the light was about to flip on and the man himself would be standing there looking directly down at them. Cherie's heart was beating so hard she was certain it had to be audible. Thump, thump. She could hardly breathe. The fear of being caught made her sweat.

She'd seen television shows about kids sneaking out in the middle of the night. Cherie wondered if any of _those_ kids had been anywhere near as afraid of being caught as she and Jean-Paul were. Doubtful. What had those kids faced when they were inevitably found out? Grounding? Loss of allowance?

The last time Cherie had been caught breaking one of daddy's rules, he had used his emotion manipulation powers to force her to kill, clean, cook, and eat the rabbit that she had spent the previous year raising as a pet, only releasing his control once her meal was half-finished.

Nikos Vasil was not a man who took defiance well. Not that he needed to be, given what he could do.

As young as she may have been, Cherie still knew who her father really was. She'd looked him up online, had seen all the stories about the man called Heartbreaker. People argued about how many women he'd actually taken into his harem (that was a word she'd had to look up). Some thought that the generally accepted number of fourteen was an exaggeration and put the number more at five or six.

The truth was, even the higher end estimates were being optimistic. Cherie was pretty sure that her father's stable currently included about close to twice that number. At least twenty or so women, along with about half that many children. Sometimes it was hard to keep track, or to tell them apart.

Between the other women and their 'brothers and sisters,' Cherie and Jean-Paul normally would have found the prospect of being caught sneaking out of the house entirely too terrifying to risk attempting it. But in this particular case, the risk was worth it. Because if this worked, if they pulled it off, they might actually be able to get away from their father for good. They might actually be free.

Once they were past the gate, Cherie pressed the button on the side of her watch. The dial lit up, revealing the smiling, reassuring face of Mickey Mouse, whose arms served as the hands of the watch face. The watch had been given to her two years earlier at a birthday party for a girl in the neighborhood that they had lived in at that time. Cherie had been riding her bike around the neighborhood, minding her own business when the girl's mother had invited her to join them at the party. Everyone there had gotten the same kind of watch. She treasured it above every other belonging she'd ever owned simply because it was the one and only thing she could be absolutely certain hadn't come as a result of her father's power and manipulation. It was hers.

Grabbing her brother's hand, Cherie began to run. The urge to shout, sing, even scream at the top of her lungs was almost impossible to resist. This simple act of rebellion, of sneaking out of the house when their father had forbidden them from setting foot outside, was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

But no. There could be no singing or shouting. Not until they were safely away. This had to be perfect. They had to leave with absolutely no chance of their father finding out they were gone until it was too late. Because there was no way he would just sit back and let two of his children walk away. As far as Cherie's daddy was concerned, she and Jean-Paul belonged to him, alongside all of their siblings.

After running for two blocks in the very early morning darkness, Cherie and Jean-Paul finally rounded a corner and found themselves facing their true salvation: a large moving truck. Eyes on the brightly lit windows of the nearby house, the only house with lights on at all at that hour, they hurried closer.

For the past two weeks, the two children had watched this family get ready to move. They had listened at the hedges dividing the yard from the empty house next door as the father talked about his new job all the way down in the United States, and how they would have to drive there.

The United States. When they had heard that, both Cherie and her brother had realized simultaneously that it was their chance to escape from their father, their way out. The two of them had spent the past couple of weeks getting themselves ready. They stole food here and there, just enough to avoid attracting too much suspicion. They packed several sets of clothes, took batteries, filled up jugs with water, and even remembered to take large plastic containers and several rolls of toilet paper for reasons that Cherie thought were gross but Jean- Paul wouldn't stop giggling about.

Rather than head straight for the truck, the two children instead rushed toward the house next door. The place had been empty for the entire time that they had lived in the neighborhood, and the pair had spent several afternoons playing in the backyard, safely away from their 'family.' It was from here that they had overheard the first talk of moving, and it was from here that they had hidden their supplies.

Pulling her backpack and a larger bag out from under the pile of boards that hid them, Cherie whispered to her brother, "Hurry, hurry. They're already up. They're probably gonna leave any minute."

Jean-Paul tugged two backpacks of his own out and stood. "Okay, okay, I'm ready." He shrugged into one of the packs, then held the other tight against his chest before giving a firm nod. Even then, Cherie saw the slight tremble of his chin. He was afraid. So was she, but she was the big sister so she pretended not to be. If she'd let him see how nervous she was, neither of them even have left the house.

Quickly running to the back of the waiting truck, Cherie set her extra bag down and reached up to unlatch the heavy door with a clang that couldn't have been that loud, yet sounded like a gunshot to her paranoid mind. Staring at the nearby house briefly to make sure no one had noticed, she then slowly slid it up just enough to shove both of her bags in, using them to brace the heavy rolling door open so that she didn't have to hold onto it anymore. Jean-Paul's bags quickly joined hers inside the truck.

Breathing out in relief that they were going to pull this off, Cherie struggled to pull herself up and into the back of the truck. "Ugggnnn... Jean-Paul, help," she hissed while scrambling. Her brother quickly moved beneath the ten-year-old girl and gave her a firm shove that was enough to send her up and in.

There wasn't much room back here, but Cherie already knew there was space deeper in. The two of them had made sure of that when they had visited earlier that day. While the family had been eating lunch, they had wormed their way inside and maneuvered enough of the boxes around to set up a space right in the middle of the truck that was just barely large enough for both of them to stretch out in. Jean-Paul had wanted to leave their supplies there, but Cherie had been afraid that it might be found. Extra space was easy to think of as a mistake. Four backpacks full of someone else's stuff wasn't.

Squirming around in the small space that she had to work with up near the door, the girl reached down for her brother's hand. "Come on," she hissed nervously. "Hurry up, Jean-Paul, get in."

His hand was on hers, and she started to pull him up before her eyes flicked up over his shoulder, spotting something on the ground. Gasping out loud, she blurted, "My watch!" Somehow, the band must have come loose. It was lying there on the sidewalk near the hedge that separated the properties.

"Just leave it," Jean-Paul hissed, trying to climb up without her help. "They're gonna come, Cherie!"

"But it's my watch!" Cherie all-but wailed. Her present, the one that was hers and hers alone. Eyes wide, she started to scramble back down out of the truck. "I've gotta get it!"

Heaving a loud sigh, her eight-year old brother waved her off and stormed over to grab the watch off the cement. "I've got it, I've got it," he assured her. "Now c'mon and-"

The front door of the house slammed open, cutting off Jean-Paul's words. The family came tumbling out, the three children all talking loudly before being shushed by their parents. Two of the children and the mother moved for the van, while the father and the eldest child went straight for the moving truck.

Jean-Paul had flung himself behind the hedge. Now, he lay there just within Cherie's sight, Mickey Mouse watch held in his hand. The space from the hedge to the truck was in plain sight of the man who was already approaching. There was no way he could get there without being seen immediately.

Laying there with the door of the truck barely open enough to stare at her brother, Cherie panicked. She didn't know what to do. They had planned this together, had promised to run away _**together,**_ to escape their hell hole of a family and find a new place to live with just the two of them. They were a team.

But Jean-Paul couldn't make it. There was absolutely no way he'd be able to get into the truck without being spotted. She had to hop down. She'd be seen as well, but the two of them could run away and disappear into the darkness. They'd have to go home, but they could run away another time, when a different opportunity presented itself.

Except the very thought of living in that house, with their _father_ for even one more day was enough to make Cherie feel sick inside her tummy. She'd been waiting for this day, had been so **happy** to get away, that having it ripped away like this was enough to bring tears to her eyes. It wasn't _fair!_

Clearly sensing her indecision, Jean-Paul hissed, "No, Cherie. Don't leave me." His eyes were wide with as much fear as she herself felt. They were partners, a team. They were going to escape together. They were going to survive on their own, because the two of them were the only ones they could trust.

The man was too close for Jean-Paul to risk talking out loud again, but she could easily read his lips as he mouthed the words, "Don't go. Don't leave without me. Don't leave me with him."

Staring at the pleading look on her little brother's face, Cherie felt something inside herself break even more than their father had been able to do with all of his torments. She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat physically painful to force down. Then, without taking her eyes off of Jean-Paul's pleading face, she slowly reached out to tug the bags out from under the door, letting it slide down into place.

The moment after the door was shut, Cherie heard the father speak from right outside, saying something about stopping for breakfast. Then there was a loud clatter of metal as the latch was turned over, locking her in the truck with a sound of finality that brought even more tears to her eyes.

Swallowing hard once more, the young girl sat there staring at the back of the metal door for another few seconds. The engine started up, and then the truck began to pull away from the curb, leading her on the way to a new life. A life without her brother.

Finally, Cherie forced herself to get up. She grabbed the bags that both she and Jean-Paul had packed, carrying them one at a time through the narrow tunnel that the two of them had constructed out of chairs that led into their private space in the middle of the truck.

There she sat, shoving her own bags aside before opening one of Jean-Paul's. Staring down at the stuff he had packed to take on their bid for freedom, Cherie reached inside and took out a single object. His Gameboy. God, Jean-Paul loved that thing so much. He was obsessed with video games, and hadn't stopped talking to her for the past two weeks about all the games he was going to beat during their **long,** cross-countryjourney south.

Holding the Gameboy in her lap for a few long minutes, Cherie did nothing but stare at it. She couldn't get Jean-Paul's look of betrayal when she had reached for the door out of her head. His stare, his plea, his accusing look as she closed the door on him, it was all burned into her mind. She had abandoned him, had left him behind to live with their father while she ran away. They had promised to stay together, and she had betrayed that promise. She had left him.

Tears staining her vision, Cherie moved her fingers over the hand-held game system until she found the power button. Clicking it on, she breathed in, then out again before focusing on the bright screen.

Jean-Paul wasn't here. She was going to have to play the games for him. She could hold onto him that way, could hold onto the brother that she would probably never see again. In this single, small way... he wasn't completely gone.

* * *

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

"I'm telling you, if you just let me plug that old Gameboy into my system for **five** minutes, I can juice it up so much you'll think it's current gen hardware," Mike, whose chosen moniker was Leet, cajoled.

Cherie, now eighteen (almost nineteen) years old gave him a dangerous look. "And I'm telling you," she informed the boy while sliding her brother's old hand-held system into her pocket pointedly, "if you even try to touch this thing, I will tear your fucking eyes out and feed them to you. Understand?"

Sighing, Mike rolled his eyes and sat back in the swivel chair, rolling partway across the office that they were currently using as a base. "Shit, you're no fun."

"You two arguing again?" Jeff, Uber to their public audience, asked while coming in through the door. He tossed a sub sandwich to Mike, then to Cherie. "I can't leave you guys alone for ten minutes, huh?"

Catching the sub, Cherie took a moment to marvel at the difference between the two best friends. Jeff was tall, handsome, and an obvious athlete. Mike... wasn't.

She had come to the city with one intention: to protect her younger brother. It had taken Cherie years and a lot of favors to track the boy down. Now that she finally had, she'd had no idea of how to approach him. Letting his team know who she was had probably been a mistake, a move born of desperation as she'd thought about what would happen if anyone found out that they had one of Heartbreaker's kids in custody. They'd **never** let him go without using him to try to get at the man himself. The thought of that happening had spurred her to desperate action.

Which meant that now Jean-Paul... or Alec as he was calling himself at the moment, knew she was in town. To say he wasn't eager to talk to her was an understatement, he'd ignored every attempt she made at establishing contact. Clearly, that night was as fresh in his mind as it had always been in hers.

Shortly after arriving, Cherie had met Uber and Leet as an intended victim of one of their robberies. After nearly killing them both, she had actually joined the two, convincing them to take on the team name of Fifth Column and refocus their energy toward ending corruption within companies and the government, specifically the PRT. She had seen **far** too many examples of that sort of thing while living on the streets, and now she had the ability to do something about it.

And, hopefully, find a way to get back to her brother. Because it had been too long, and she had lost far too many people that she cared about over the years, to risk never making up with Jean-Paul.

Sure, it wasn't going to be easy. He was obviously still furious with her for abandoning him all those years ago. Cherie wasn't even sure how to go about apologizing for everything, considering the kind of punishment he had probably experienced as soon as their father realized she was gone for good.

But then again, if there was one thing she had learned over the years, it was that nothing worth actually having came easily. If you really wanted something badly enough, you did whatever it took to get it.

Jeff was talking to Mike, gesturing toward the nearby computer screen, which was divided into four different full color security camera views that kept cycling through more than a dozen options, mostly different hallways and the occasional office. "See anything interesting yet?"

Groaning, Mike shook his head. "I'm telling you guys, there's nothing on these recordings that we can use. We've gone over them for the past week and it's all boring stuff. They don't let cameras anywhere near the sensitive things."

"That bug of yours that we used to get Jeff and the Undersiders out of custody gave us access to every security feed in the PRT building," Cherie insisted. "It's three hours of footage from every camera in there. Come on, there has to be **something** in all of it that we can use."

"And I'm telling you, there's nothing there," Mike shot back. "We've been over it and over it and over—"

"Wait," Jeff was leaning closer to the screen. "Make it go back to that last recording."

Frowning, Mike hit a few keys, and all of them watched as the view in the upper right corner switched to showing the inside of a supply closet. The door opened, and a short, squat figure squeezed her way in before forcing it closed after herself.

"Director Piggot?" Cherie shook her head. "What's so important about that cunt?"

"What's she doing in there?" Jeff asked with a frown. "I swear it looks like she's hiding."

Mike snorted. "She needs a bigger room if she's gonna hide that lard ass."

The three of them fell silent then, watching as the woman on the screen tugged a phone out of her pocket. Her fingers danced over the buttons as she dialed before holding what was obviously a terse conversation that lasted two minutes. Then she shut off the phone, adjusted her clothes, and stepped out of the closet to resume her work.

"When was that?" Jeff asked. "And did you get that number?"

"About half an hour before we sprang you," Mike answered after checking the time stamp. "And hold on." He put the video back to when the woman was dialing, cycling it up frame by frame until he found a single image just before the phone was pressed to her ear that showed the number she had dialed on the screen.

"Mike, can you-" Jeff started to speak.

"Already on it," Mike had scooted up to the computer, and was typing rapidly on it. "Gimme a sec and I'll turn on the phone on the other side of that number so we can hear everything they're doing right now. Might tell us who the hell it is." He took a moment to leer at Cherie. "A little kiss might make it work faster."

Hooking her arms behind her head, Cherie shrugged. "You two feel free to make out all you want."

The two boys made faces at each other before Mike resumed his work with only a slight grumble. A few minutes later, he sat back and hit one last button. "Ta da."

Through the computer speakers, they heard rustling cloth, and then a male voice. "How much longer?"

The next voice wasn't audible to them, but the first one sounded annoyed when he responded, "We can't wait that long. The Piggot woman is ready to go now. If we wait much longer, we risk her losing even more control. It's slipping already. Some people are starting to notice that she's not quite herself."

There was another muffled response before the first man blurted, "Because she's desperate! Her last hit was too long ago. If we don't give her something in return for everything she's done, we're gonna lose her. She'll fuck something up and won't be able to cover it."

Finally, when the second voice spoke, it was clear. The man had obviously stepped closer. "No, Edward. We won't lose her. Trust me on that. I know precisely how far to push this particular dove."

After a short pause, the first voice replied with obvious uncertainty, "Aight then. Whatever you say, boss."

"No," the second voice corrected, sounding amused. "Not boss.

"Teacher."


	9. Arc 9: Face To Face

_Sorry, guys! This arc has been done for awhile now, but I neglected to put it up here. The good news is that that means the next arc is almost done and should be finished in about a week. And I just posted the previously finished chapter of Atonement too, so if you follow both stories on here then that's even more content for you!_

 _And if you're a fan of content but haven't checked out Heretical Edge yet, we're partway through Arc 8 and going strong. So that's another two hundred thousand words worth of writing if you need something else to peruse._

 **9-01 – Emma**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

"You know, I'm pretty sure I'm doing this whole criminal thing completely backwards," I remarked while standing in the middle of a dark living room that reeked of pot smoke and worse smells.

"Backwards?" Nimue asked from the other side of the room, where she had just dropped a couple of books into that oh-so-convenient hat of hers with the seemingly limitless storage space. At some point, I really was going to have to sit the girl down and get her to tell me everything about all the 'magic' toys that she had to work with. Except that the simple thought of just how much mileage both she and Alec would get out of that kind of one-on-one discussion made me keep putting it off.

Nodding, I glanced out the nearby window, checking to make sure that the street still looked as empty as it had when the two of us had arrived twenty minutes earlier. There wasn't much to see. It was still so early that the sun wouldn't be up for another couple of hours. Not that the lack of daylight mattered to me, considering my current schedule pretty much had me sleeping from about four in the afternoon until eleven or twelve at night. As far as I was concerned, it was just about lunchtime.

"Yeah," I replied after turning my attention back to scanning the almost empty bookshelf for anything that might stand out. There wasn't much. "See, as far as I can tell, most thieves work their way _up_ from home burglary to things like gang wars, armored car robberies, and jail breaks. I'm totally doing this the wrong way around." As I finished talking, my hand swept a small, probably plastic trophy into the bag that I was holding. It clearly wasn't worth much, but the thing had to have been kept for a reason.

"Got a point there, sweet stuff," Nimue acknowledged easily while lazily plucking a framed photograph from the wall. She examined it briefly before dropping the picture into her hat. "Not that anything you've done has exactly been 'normal' cape crime stuff though. Even this." She gestured around the room before holding the hat out for me to use. "You're not exactly snatching lollipops out of toddler's mouths right now. Apparently hearts of gold and buns of steel go together. Who knew?"

Flushing slightly, I held my sack out over the hat and gave it a push. The brim seemed to widen somewhat to accept the bag before resuming its normal shape. "I'm just doing what I need to do."

"And I respect that," Nimue winked at me before expertly flipping the top hat back onto her head. It landed slightly crooked, but a quick head tilt shook it into the proper position. "Seriously, I know I goof a lot and give you shit, but this stuff about trying to save your old friend, I get that. Never really stayed in one place long enough to feel that way about anyone except my mother, but part of me wishes I did. And, you know, if anyone took my mom, I don't think I'd hold it together as much as you are."

Swallowing, I started to respond before hesitating. My eyes narrowed a bit suspiciously from behind my mask. "Is this your way tricking me into wanting to hug you so you can cop a feel or something?"

Laughing easily, the other girl gave a brief bow, clearly acknowledging the likelihood of that before holding her hand up with her index and middle fingers crossed. "You know what this means, babe?"

"Uh," I blinked at that. "I'm pretty sure most kids know that crossing your fingers means you're lying."

Her head shook then, amusement clear in her voice. "For kids, sure. But one of the old Tylers-"

I raised my hand, cutting in. "What do you mean, 'one of the old Tylers?' Like androids or something? What are you, the newest model? Should we be watching out for naked Austrian bodybuilders?"

In reply, Nimue raised three fingers. "Okay, first, you should **always** watch out for naked Austrian bodybuilders. That should just be like... a constant background process. Low priority, but when it pops up, **bam**!" Her fist hit her palm. "You are on it. Naked Austrian bodybuilder is not to be wasted."

I couldn't help but snicker a little bit in spite of myself. "Umm, sure, I'll keep that in mind."

"Good girl," she replied before continuing. "Second, naked Kyle Reese is like, three billion times hotter than Arnold in that movie, so if anything you should be watching out for him."

Blinking once, then again, I slowly remarked, "You do realize that you just got through telling me that I should pretty much instantly throw myself at the nearest Austrian bodybuilder I could find, right?"

" _Naked_ Austrian bodybuilder," Tyler corrected. "And yup. I stand by it. Three billion times hotter. Maybe four. So what does that tell you about just how fast I'd jump on _that_ scruffy piece of ass?"

That time I couldn't help it. I just couldn't. A laugh escaped me before I clapped a hand over my mouth. "Damn it, Nimue," I complained once I had myself under control. "You're gonna get us caught." After pausing to collect myself, I managed to ask, "What was the third point? And if it has to do with how attractive **Sarah** is, please, please, please at least try to save it until we get out of here."

Her response was a scoff. "Please. No, the third point was that by 'one of the old Tylers', I mean me. A version of me before this one." She shrugged slightly. "My mother and I, we move around so much that it's easy to just pick a personality and be that person for the few weeks or couple months that we happen to be there. Then we move to a new city and I pick someone new to be. Charming, flirty, brainy, jock, geek, innocent, prudish, popular, they're all just new masks. I pick one and wear it."

Something about that sounded a little off and maybe even kind of sad. Biting my lip, I realized after a second that I had no idea of how to respond to that. "Oh, umm... okay."

"Anyway," Tyler went on. "One previous me was a gigantic drama geek. I mean seriously, wow. The me I am at school now is kind of nerdy and shy, but this other me was _really_ into the whole theater, play sort of thing. We did monologues, dialogues, all that stuff. When we were talking as ourselves instead of as part of the scene, we did this." She held her crossed fingers up once more. "It means you're talking as yourself, not as a character, not as part of a scene or anything like that."

Once I had nodded in acknowledgment of that, she continued. "So..." Holding her hand up so I could see her crossed fingers, Tyler went on. "When I do this while saying that I'm impressed by how well you're keeping yourself together, I mean it. No games, no teasing, no other character, none of that. I _can_ turn that stuff off, you know. I don't like to, because it's fun, but I'm capable of being serious."

It took me a few seconds to respond. When I finally spoke, it was hard to keep the fear completely out of my voice. "Do you think this'll even work? It's kind of a long shot."

"It's a huge long shot," Tyler confirmed. "But the logic's sound. You know, as much as cape logic is _ever_ sound. I think it's got a solid chance. Sure, we haven't got anything yet, but give it time."

Swallowing a little, I gave a slight nod. "I just hope time is something we still have..."

"We are so out of time, dude."

* * *

An hour later, Alec continued while digging through the freezer. "Those hostages have gotta be dead by now, right?" Coming out with a couple of frozen cheeseburgers, he stopped upon noticing my expression (I had removed the mask after making it back with Nimue). His head tilted slightly, and I could almost _see_ the thought process he was going through to figure out what he'd said wrong. "I mean... shit, your friend. Look, if they're still alive-"

"They are," I said firmly. "They're alive, trust me. I'm not just in denial or whatever. It doesn't make sense for the Merchants to kill them. The _second_ those hostages are actually dead, the Merchants lose all leverage **and** they get kill orders. Serious kill orders. You don't kill fifty hostages while trying to blackmail the Protectorate into releasing a prisoner without calling the wrath of several gods down on your head. They're mostly fuck-ups, but even they have to understand that much."

Alec's phone began to play some old song, and he glanced at it before swiping to deny the call while muttering, "For the fourth time, Cher, not interested in chatting."

"That your sister?" I started to ask.

Rather than answer me, the boy simply tore open the wrappers on his burgers, then set them on a plate and tossed it into the microwave. The slam of the microwave door and the way his fingers stabbed the buttons rather _enthusiastically_ pretty thoroughly answered that question.

"So what do you think they're doing with the hostages?" He finally spoke, definitively changing the subject.

It was Tyler who spoke up, taking her turn in the fridge to get a bottle of water that she twisted the top off of. "My guess? They're freaking the hell out and trying to figure out what the fuck they're supposed to do now. Those guys are probably just as piss pants scared of what's going on as the hostages are."

I nodded in quick agreement at that, desperately needing that to be right. The thought of Madison being stuck with those animals made me want to start kicking the nearby wall until either the wall gave out or my foot did. It was all I could do to keep things together as much as I had. "She's right. Even if they really don't have any direct contact with anyone in the city, which I doubt, they have to know by this point that Skidmark and Benjamins are out of the picture. That just leaves them what, two capes? Mush is pretty mediocre if you hit him before he gets much of a body going, or just punch through his debris. Greaser's the bigger threat by about a thousand times. But even then, the two of them and whatever drug-buddies they've still got aren't going to risk throwing away their only negotiation tool. If anyone finds them, they'll make the heroes deal with some kind of threat to the hostages while they escape. But killing them now? That gets them nothing. The Merchants are losers, but they're not _that_ stupid."

Retrieving his plate from the microwave, Alec inclined his head, giving me a thoughtful look briefly. "Hope you're right, Squirrel. Hate to see you get yourself worked up over this girl you're trying to save if anything did happen to her. I don't think my heart could take losing two leaders in the same month." As he spoke, the boy grabbed a nearby bag of chips and tore it open before pouring them onto the plate.

"Aww, I didn't know you cared," I shot back at him before blinking. "Wait, I just realized, why are you up so early, anyway? You're usually still in bed when I leave for school. Early day?"

He practically _guffawed_ at me. "Early? Do I look like a **farmer** , Squirrel? This ain't an early day, it's a late one." He held up the plate of food. "I've got dinner and two more episodes of ALF to watch"

I blinked at that. "You're watching ALF?"

"Hell yeah, I'm watching ALF," Alec replied. "Think about it. All he wants to do is goof off, have wacky adventures, and get some pussy. He's practically my spirit animal."

"Pussy... cat." I coughed. "You realize he wants to _eat_ the cats once he—ohhhh god, never mind!" Alec grinned back at me while I waved my hands frantically. "I said never mind, never mind!"

Smirking, Alec shrugged. "Anyway, more classic alien hijinks, then it's bed time." Taking a bite of one of his burgers, he waved with it while strolling out of the room. As he went, the boy called back, his voice muffled by the food. "Good luck with the school thing!"

On his way out, he was passed by Lisa. She plucked a chip off his plate and crunched into it before looking at me. "More stuff?"

"Yup," I replied. "We emptied out three more houses. I swear, we got **everything** that looked like it had any kind of memories or history connected to it. Pictures, trophies, letters, anything." Pausing then, I met her gaze. "Thanks for doing this. I know it's a lot of work and that you can't really stretch your power that much. I'm asking a lot of you, I know. I know. I just... I have to find them."

It was an idea that I had come up with the day after the major blow-up with my dad. Tattletale's power couldn't just give her information out of nothing. She had to have bits of information to start from. So we'd spent the past few days tracking down every important Merchant house we could and snagging anything that looked important. Lisa would look through what we brought her and see if her power pinged on anything that might eventually lead to where the bastards were hiding, like an address on a love letter (though a death threat was more likely) that made Lisa's power start jumping up and down about really good places to hide fifty prisoners.

"I'll take a look as soon as I get something to eat," she promised. "You still going to school?"

There was something in the way she asked that, and the look she gave me, that I couldn't quite read. I hesitated, squinting at her briefly before nodding. "Yeah, like I said before, I don't want to give my dad _any_ ammunition. I go to school, I make everything look fine for as long as I can so he leaves me alone."

"Better get going then, school girl," Tyler advised from the corner of the room while rolling the water bottle back and forth in her hands. "You don't wanna be late and make the teacher punish you." She held that for about two seconds before straightening. "On second thought, take your time. Grab some food, maybe catch a little cat nap?"

Rolling my eyes even as my face pinked, I cleared my throat decisively. "Don't _you_ have school to go to?"

"Yup," she replied easily. "But I've got first period off. So if you want, I could keep you company on the way to your school. We'll just walk reaaaaally, _reaaaaallly_ slowly."

* * *

I didn't end up taking Tyler's offer of company on the way to school, considering I had to use my power to make sure I got there on time. Like I'd said to the others, the last thing I wanted was to give my father the slightest opportunity to claim I couldn't handle being without him.

My mom... I wasn't sure about. I hadn't talked to her in days, and I sort of missed _her_ more than Dad, even if she had sat back and let all this happen. Not as much as I missed Anne, of course. I really missed my sister, more than I'd thought that I would. Somehow, I had to get hold of her and at least let her know that I was all right.

Hell, by now she'd probably heard Dad's side of the story and thought I was a worthless, ungrateful little shit.

I didn't use my power any further than the equipment shed on the far side of the running track. It wasn't worth the chance of drawing attention to get any closer. After changing clothes into my school uniform (I absolutely refused to change into it within the same city block as Tyler and Alec), I hauled my backpack back onto my shoulder, turned my power off, and strolled out to head for my first class.

Distracted as I was by thoughts of everything I needed to do that didn't involve school, I almost didn't notice the shadowy figure pass over my head until it landed directly in front of me. Then my eyes jerked up, widening in surprise at the monstrous, four-winged gargoyle creature that had planted itself in my path.

Panic filled me for a brief second. The brand new Protectorate cape? How?! How had they found me so quickly? And why the hell were they coming after me at school of all places? Wasn't that against the rules or something? What had I done to deserve that kind of attention?

Before I could decide to leap into my time freeze and make a run for it, the heavily mutated cape spoke up. "It's okay, Woody, it's me! It's me!"

My mouth fell open again, and I froze. Slowly raising my gaze to the figure's eyes, I stared for a few seconds before managing to find my voice, strained as it was.

"... A... Anne?"

 **9-02 (Madison)**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

"Keep running! I don't care if you feel like your legs are about to fall off and your lungs are on fire, you keep running! One step after another, let's go! You haven't **earned** the right to stop yet, so move it!"

Almost audibly yelping, I started running in place once more, ignoring the protests that various parts of my body were enthusiastically lodging with their union reps. They were just quitters. Pain, hah! Run!

It was early in the morning, five days after the big escape from the Empire Eighty-Eight headquarters. The voice essentially shouting in my ear belonged to the _second_ Nazi supervillain that I had been the house-guest of in the past week or so. Which was kind of a developing trend that I really hoped got nipped in the bud pretty quick, before I turned into the Princess Peach of Brockton Bay's cape scene.

Wait, Crystal had to be Peach. She was the sexy blonde one that deserved all of the attention. I was the brunette knock-off that the sidekick got stuck with. Daisy, that was it.

And, to be fair, Iron Rain wasn't _reeeeaaaaaally_ a Nazi at the moment, I supposed. It was complicated. Even living among the Faithful for the past few days hadn't done that much to uncomplicate it entirely. Essentially, as far as I could tell, Purity, Iron Rain, and Browbeat didn't consider themselves Nazis, Krieg _had_ before he was arrested (thanks to the Brigade), and Fog and Night still weren't entirely sure why they weren't supposed to. As a whole, their philosophy seemed to be: fuck gang members. Which wasn't a bad philosophy overall, even if they were pretty unrepentantly violent about it.

Shutting those thoughts out of my entirely-too-active mind, I forced myself to follow Iron Rain's directions. As sore as my legs were and as much as my body tried to protest in general, I kept running on the treadmill while staring into my own masked face in the mirror across the room.

Yeah, while I didn't have the visor on all the time, I did wear the simple ski mask instead. I may have figured that the Faithful weren't _enemies_ at the moment, but I wasn't going to go around unmasking myself to everybody if I could help it. Especially people like Night and Fog. I still wasn't sure why either of them continued to be a part of the group. Neither seemed to care that much about cleaning up the city or making things better like the other three did.

And Dinah, I reminded myself. It was still weird to mentally add her into the Faithful's lineup. She seemed so different from them, so much more innocent. Yet many times in the past few days I had seen her sitting up with Purity and Iron Rain, clearly a major partner in their decision making process.

So I kept my mask on any time I wasn't in the room that they had provided for me, and they obliged my preference by retaining their own costumes whenever I was around. It probably made things more difficult than they had to be, but I felt a lot safer and more at ease.

To take my mind off of my steadily mounting terror over Crystal's condition (though Dinah kept insisting that she was okay and we still had time to find her), I had accepted Iron Rain's offer to give me some training alongside Rune, whom she had been putting through her paces ever since we got here. I figured it was better than sitting in some room watching television and feeling helpless **again.**

So that's what I had been doing almost non-stop. Rain had been treating the last few days like some kind of boot camp, working Rune and I (And Browbeat when he wasn't at school or doing things with his apparently clueless family) pretty much nonstop save for a couple breaks here and there to let us recuperate. For the most part, if we weren't exercising or training, we were eating or sleeping. Or studying, since Rune still insisted on tutoring me as much as possible. She'd said something about not letting me throw away all the hard work she'd put into crash coursing me into a passable student.

My eyes moved over the mirror to take in the figure running on the treadmill beside me. Rune wasn't wearing her costume at the moment, since robes made poor exercise clothes. Instead, she wore sweat pants and a tee-shirt, the lower half of her face covered by that thin cloth mask. Without her hood, I could see the blonde hair that I'd only gotten glimpses of in the Empire base.

The way she ran, her form was perfect, and seeing the girl without her robe kept drawing my eyes for some reason. I supposed it was the novelty of the situation. I'd gotten used to seeing my former captor in her costume, so this was different. A pleasant kind of different that kept making me happy while I watched her figure jog.

Our running was interrupted by a knock at the doorway before Night stepped into the room. Her black costume was simple at its base, mostly consisting of a heavy cloak with no real decoration, a cowl to cover her face, and a whole bunch of tools like flashbangs, smoke grenades, and other equipment designed around blinding her foes so that her real power could come into play. As long as no one could see her, Night could turn into some kind of horrible monster. The very instant she was observed, she'd turn back to normal. Or, well, as close to normal as Night tended to get. She and Fog weren't really bastions of mental health, as far as I had seen. It wasn't like they'd threatened me or anything. They were just... off.

After stepping into the room, the woman spoke up. Her voice was that of an _incredibly_ chipper housewife off of some old black and white show on late night television. "I hope you're all having a wonderful morning. Purity would like everyone to join her in the kitchen. She has news. And it is breakfast time, of course. You don't want to let your eggs get cold. You know how they hate wearing sweaters." She stopped talking, pausing unnaturally as though waiting for an actual laugh track.

That was how she and her husband, Fog, were like all the time as far as I could tell. They talked and acted like they were living in some kind of ancient TV show, like that movie from Earth Aleph where the teenagers end up stuck in that black and white reality before color shows up. On the surface, it was pleasant. But there was just an undertone of... alien wrongness to it that added a sinister note to what should probably have seemed charming. Instead, I felt creeped out any time they were around.

"Thank you, Do-Night." Rain caught herself with a glance toward me before nodding. "We'll be right up as soon as the girls have a chance to shower. We wouldn't want them to sweat all over the kitchen."

With a single nod of agreement, Night pivoted on her heel to leave of the room. Rune gave me an unreadable look of her own before heading to the opposite door that led to showers.

I started to follow after her, but a hand caught my shoulder to stop me. "Archive, wait a moment, please." Iron Rain had lowered her voice slightly. "There's something I need to say to you."

Looking up at the clearly incredibly fit and toned woman, I felt a strange blush touch my cheeks. It was weird, but the same feeling came over me pretty much every time Rain paid deliberate and private attention to me. I shook it off before nodding. "I hope I didn't do something wrong."

"No, nothing like that." She shook her head. "I just wanted to say..." Her eyes moved up toward the doorway as though to make sure we were still alone before she continued. "I know it might be hard to talk about, but I hope that none of the Empire were too... hard on you over your personal preferences."

My personal preferences? My mouth opened to ask what she was talking about, before I realized. Oh, the fact that I was a hero. Shaking my head, I replied, "No, ma'am, Kaiser didn't give them a chance."

"Really?" Rain's head tilted slightly in consideration. "I suppose his goals mattered more than maintaining that particular pretense. I half-expected him to treat you worse, just to get at me."

"How would treating me worse get at you, ma'am?" I asked blankly.

The helmet that she wore left only diagonal green vent lines where her mouth was, but I had the feeling she was smiling. "Isn't it obvious? I'm like you. Hell, that's one major reason that I left the Empire."

Oh. Oh, right. She had left the Empire to be (her version of) a hero, so of course Kaiser would see any other hero as a reminder of that. I shuddered. "I hope he's not holding that against Laserdream."

"Laserdream?" Iron Rain lifted her chin, clearly curious. "She's the same way?"

"Of course!" My eyes widened while I nodded vigorously, confused about why the woman would even question the fact that Crystal was a hero. "Laserdream's one of the biggest ones I know."

"You don't say..." The woman sounded thoughtful for a moment before nodding. "I suppose I can see that." She cleared her throat. "In any case, I want you to know that you're safe here. No one is going to hurt you for it or say anything about it. I know... going by where we come from, you might have been worried. But it's okay. Like I said, I've been where you are. I've felt and wanted the same things."

Before I could respond to that, Rain pressed on. "But I've seen the way you look at Rune. I don't want... to discourage you too much, but I want you to know that there's a good chance she doesn't think the same way you do. The way she's grown up, the people she spent so much time around... that's not an easy thing to just ignore. And even if she can ignore it in your case, there's a good chance she won't actually **feel** the same way you do. That's just how this sort of thing goes."

She was afraid that Rune wouldn't want to be a hero? I blinked. "You think she'll go back to the Empire?" It was impossible to keep the distress out of my voice at the very thought of that. Rune was my friend, as odd and abnormal as our original meeting had been. I didn't want her to go back there.

"Oh no, never." Iron Rain shook her head rapidly. "I don't think she'd react _that_ badly if you, ah, pushed things, but still. Maybe it's best if you just give her time to adjust to all the changes she's already dealing with before trying to push more on her?"

Oh. Oh! Right, I understood now. She was afraid that I was going to try to talk Rune into coming over to the Brigade. The thought had crossed my mind, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't accept her, given her history. Something told me that trying to get them to let the former Empire Eighty-Eight girl join the team wouldn't go over that well. Especially with Brandish.

"No ma'am," I replied while shaking my head. "I won't push her like that, I promise."

"Good girl." The woman gave my head a rub before pushing me toward the door. "Go on, get cleaned up so we can find out what Purity wants, okay?"

I nodded before making my way into the locker room. I wasn't sure exactly where we were other than downtown, but it was clear that a _lot_ of work and money had gone into it. There was a practically a whole personal fitness club tacked onto what was already a pretty massive penthouse condo with multiple bedrooms and a kitchen with attached dining room that could feed the entire Brigade.

Before I reached the showers (there were four, each covered by a heavy duty curtain that allowed for privacy), Rune stepped into view. She'd clearly been waiting for me. "Hey, what'd she want?"

I shook my head, not wanting to break Rain's confidence. "She just wanted to give me some advice."

"Advice?" Rune sounded doubtful before shaking that off. "Whatever, that's not what I wanted to talk about anyway."

The sound of her voice made me frown. "Is everything all right?"

"No. Yes. No." Falling for a moment then, the other girl finally heaved a sigh. "I don't know. I think Purity has a lead on Kaiser's location."

"What?" My eyes widened. "That's great! Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," she confirmed. "Night stopped in here a minute ago to 'make sure I washed up properly' and I asked her about it. Sounds like one of her contacts came through or something."

"Right," I bobbed my head up and down, already thinking ahead. "So we need to get ready. If I contact the Brigade-"

"Just wait a minute." Rune held both hands up to stop me, clearly upset about something. "Look, after we rescue your teammate and kick Kaiser's teeth in, things have to change, don't they?"

"What do you mean?"

She gave me what was obviously an exasperated look. "You know, because our teams don't get along? I'm staying here with Purity and Rain. You're going to the white knight club. They're not exactly on speaking terms. Hell, your team got Krieg put in the Birdcage. Not that he didn't have it coming, but seriously. They—I mean we may not be literal Nazis anymore, but I don't think your team cares."

It took me a second, but I got it. "Wait, you're afraid that we're not going to be friends after this?"

Her reply was a flat snort. "Are we friends now? I don't know your name, I don't know what you look like. I don't know anything except that we're going to go get into a big ass fight with my former team and then you're going back to where you came from, a group that hates my group."

I opened my mouth, then shut it and stared at her. "You're right."

"Yeah, that's what I figured." She muttered the words before starting to turn away.

"Hey, stop." I caught her arm while shaking my head. "I mean you're right, you haven't seen my face and you don't know my name."

Before I could over-think it, my hand moved to tug the ski mask up and off my head, shaking my hair out while continuing to meet the other girl's gaze. "My name is Madison Clements. I'd like to be your friend."

For a few seconds, Rune did nothing more than stare at me. Then her hand slowly moved up to tug down the cloth that covered her face, revealing it. "Cassie," she replied. "Cassie Herren. And you are a huge, **huge** dork."

* * *

A couple of hours later, I sat on a a stone wall on the edge of an unused parking lot near the docks. I was in full costume, visor intact as I kicked my legs back and forth with nervous energy. I was waiting.

"She's clear."

The voice spoke up abruptly, startling me into a yelp from its proximity directly in front of me. A previously invisible figure appeared out of thin air, and I saw Seraph floating there, grinning at me. "Hey, you!"

"Ser-" I managed to get out before she caught hold of my arms and yanked me off the wall. My greeting turned into a yelp as I was hauled into a tight, fierce hug. "Ack, hi!"

We landed on the ground, and the other girl released me from the hug, only to swat me upside the head. "What the _**hell**_ were you doing?!"

"Seraph, easy." My eyes turned to the new figure just in time to recognize Fleur before the older girl embraced me as well. Then she took her own turn at swatting me, though she aimed for the shoulder. "Seriously though, what the hell?"

"Oww..." I rubbed my arm and stared as the entire group seemed to magically appear right there in the parking lot. Clearly Victoria had been masking them while they scouted out the location. Which seemed... oddly subtle for her. "Are you guys all going to take turns hitting me?"

"They could if I promise to heal you afterward." That was Amy, stepping into view to take her turn for a hug. "Maybe if you ask nicely, I won't make it taste like rotting fish."

"We could just let Manpower hit her once for all of us," Lightstar suggested. "Get it out of the way faster."

"My daughter." Lady Photon interrupted. She planted herself in front of me, ignoring the others as she put her hands on my shoulders. "Crystal. She's... she's still..."

I looked from her to where Manpower and Shielder were before nodding once. "Dinah says she's still alive, and that there's still time to save her if we hurry."

Everyone present visibly sighed in relief, tension visibly melting off of them. Then Lady Photon paused. "Dinah? As in Dinah Alcott, the mayor's niece? What does she have to do with this?"

I winced. "It's a long story, but she's a precog. She says we still have time."

I was interrupted by the tight hug that Lady Photon pulled me into, followed by another hug from her husband that was so tight it nearly crushed me. The man rumbled his thanks before rubbing my head. Seriously, why did people like doing that so much? Did they think I was a lucky charm or something?

"Like I said," I continued once everyone had taken their turn for a greeting. "There isn't time to waste. Whoever Purity's contact is-"

"Purity?" Brandish interrupted suddenly. "What... does Purity have to do with this?"

I winced. "Right. They're the ones helping us." Before the dozens of objections could come pouring in, I went on. "They helped me get away and they hate Kaiser as much as you guys do! They've also been working to find his new hideout, and Purity just got new information from some kind of contact that's about to meet us all here so we know where to go. So you guys can keep being pissy at each other, or call a truce so they can help us rescue Laserdream."

They all looked to one another, but it was Lady Photon who spoke. "I don't care if we have to call a truce with every other villain in this city besides the one that took my daughter. If it gets her back, I'll do it."

Manpower nodded. "Truce. We won't go after them."

I breathed out, glad that had gone as well as it had. "Okay, I'll let them know it's okay to come down." Holding my hand out, I activated my field for a brief second to summon my phone into it and hit a couple of buttons to send the message.

"Listen, Archive—Madison." Fleur spoke up then, taking my hand. "Before this goes any further, we _need_ to tell you about-"

Before she could get any further, the door of the nearby warehouse opened up, and the Faithful emerged one at a time. Fleur and the rest of the Brigade fell silent, staring at the approaching figures.

Both sides were lined up there in the empty lot, essentially staring each other down. Lady Photon, Manpower, Brandish, Flashbang, Fleur, Lightstar, Seraph, Shielder, and Panacea on one side, Purity, Iron Rain, Night, Fog, Browbeat, and Rune on the other. And me in the middle.

"Okay, guys." I spoke up before the tension could rise too much. "We're all on a truce here. Nobody's going to bring up anything that happened in the past."

"Like putting our friend in the Birdcage," Iron Rain spoke.

"Like being a bunch of Nazi supervillains," Brandish shot back.

I sighed. "Like anything! You guys have to stop and work together if you want to stop Kaiser, remember? Your **real** enemy? So knock it off." To Purity, I asked, "You said your contact was gonna meet us here?"

The glowing woman gave a slight nod. "They insisted we meet in a neutral location before they'd tell us where to find Kaiser. This was the best spot available." Then she lifted her hand. "And here they are."

Turning that way, I stopped short and stared. Beside me, Lady Photon blurted, " _ **Them**_?"

"What?" Purity's contact stood there with her arms folded over her chest. The rest of her team stood on either side, flanking the woman. "We can't hate Nazis too?"

Purity's contact... was Faultline.

 **9-03 – Taylor**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

It had taken more than a bit of conversation to convince Faultline that it was worth investigating what the Nazis were up to. Normally, she tried to remain as impartial as possible. After all, getting a reputation for betraying the people who paid your checks was a good way to become **ex-** mercenaries.

On the other hand, Nazis. And the fact that they wanted some super-special forcefield for an unknown purpose was worrying enough that I had pushed to at least try to find out what they were doing.

In the end, Faultline had put it up to a vote, with herself remaining impartial. I voted to investigate, with Elle backing me up. Mockshow and Newter voted to leave it alone. Spitfire apologized but voted to leave it as well, explaining that she didn't think a forcefield was necessarily evidence of something bad enough for our interference. It was, after all, a defensive measure. She was willing to change her vote about stepping in to help deal with the situation if the time came, but with what we knew at the moment, she thought that staying out of the situation was the best way to go.

So it had been three to two. Then Gregor had voted to investigate. That left us tied three to three, with only Shamrock left to choose. The girl from another world had remained silent for almost long enough to make me wonder if she was ever going to answer. Then she had simply said, "Investigate."

And that had been that. Four votes to three. So we looked into what the Nazis were doing. Which, essentially, had amounted to Shamrock letting me ride in her mind as she went back into the building in her civilian persona under the disguise of looking for an office that happened to be next door. While the security guard at the desk was directing her to the other building, Payton met his gaze and let me jump into his mind. From there, I simply waited until Kaiser and Bakuda were on their way out once more, the case with the tinker device in it held tightly in the former's hand. He nodded to the guard behind the desk, and I used that opportunity to jump into _Kaiser's_ head. Which, to be honest, made me feel even dirtier than that time my power jumped me into the mind of a dog about to eat his own excrement.

From there, it had been easy to let Kaiser show me where he was holing up. Faultline and the others had trailed from a distance, but they'd eventually lost us on the way back to Brockton Bay.

I, however, stayed right with the evil bastard as he stopped at an old, seemingly abandoned farmhouse about two miles outside of the city. He and Bakuda had gone inside, past several other Empire capes and a good two dozen or so unpowered minions training in the field until they reached the barn.

Laserdream, the girl who was supposed to have been dead, had been in there. The blonde looked awful, quite frankly. She was clearly exhausted, and what I could see of her face was pale and drawn.

That wasn't the worst part, however. No. The worst part was the position she was in. The nazis had Laserdream bent in half, front-down over some kind of metal contraption about table-height that was bolted into the floor. Her legs were securely shackled to either side, and her arms were forced out in front of her almost like she was flying with her hands out, also shackled into that position. Her neck was secured in place by a clamp that forced her to look straight forward, right where her hands were forced to point. She was so thoroughly trapped that she could barely wriggle slightly.

In front of the girl there had been some weird looking device, about the size of a small car, though it was shaped more like an egg that was surrounded by these strangely colored glass panels. I couldn't tell what it was, but when Kaiser looked at it, he had felt a deep sense of satisfaction.

Then he had asked Laserdream how much charge she had put into it. When she told him, in a voice that was clearly so tired she was barely conscious, that she had to rest, he hadn't reacted that well. Snatching some kind of prod off of a nearby guard, he had shoved it into the girl's side and triggered some kind of button on it. The resulting shock had drawn a harsh little cry from the Brigade heroine, and then a blast of light had shot from her hands and into the device.

Kaiser, feeling satisfied, had passed the baton back to the guard, instructing him to use it any time she took a break for longer than five minutes.

I wanted to murder him. The shock and anger I'd felt had been so overwhelming that my mind had jumped back to my body. There I had explained through Elle what I'd seen, adding that if **they** didn't stop Kaiser, I would do it myself. I may have been okay with pulling some less-than-legal jobs considering how little help the authorities had been for my family, but I was _ **not**_ okay with looking the other way when a hero who had never done anything wrong was being tortured.

Faultline agreed to my demand, but made me promise not to go off on my own. She had her own idea. Kaiser had plenty of enemies, and one group stood out above the others. The Faithful. She'd contacted Purity with information, asking if they'd be interested in teaming up to deal with the situation.

As it turned out, not only had the Faithful already been looking for Kaiser, they also had some connection to the Brigade themselves. Which meant that all three groups were going to hit that bastard.

Good. I hoped the piece of shit Nazi bastard pissed himself when he saw what was coming for him.

All of which brought me to the point where I, alongside the rest of the Crew, were standing there watching the Brigade and Faithful facing one another. Clearly they weren't exactly _friendly_ allies.

That Archive girl was there too, the new Brigade member. She was supposed to have been killed alongside Laserdream, but apparently she'd survived as well. I wasn't sure how she'd gone from nearly dying at the hands of the Empire to being friendly with the Faithful, but it was probably a long story.

While the three leaders of each team, Faultline, Purity, and Lady Photon respectively, moved together to discuss the situation, the rest of us simply stood and watched one another. Beside me, Elle gazed off at nothing. She was having a fairly 'off' day so far, the majority of her focus devoted to one of her internal worlds. I could have pulled her out of it through the connection that the two of us shared, but Faultline had said to let her rest as much as possible. Once things got underway, I could get her attention. But until then, it wasn't hurting anything to let her mind (literally) wander. The only indication I had that she was present at all was the occasional squeeze she gave my hand.

The whole situation was kind of weird. Considering the way my power worked, I was seeing everyone in the area all at once, from every angle. The lot we were in was enclosed enough that if I had wanted to, I could have listened in on any conversation, including the one that the team leaders were having.

"Ariadne and Labyrinth, huh?" One of the figures that had arrived with the Faithful came forward, interrupting my internal debate about whether I should spy on the talk between Faultline, Purity, and Lady Photon. Belatedly, I realized who the speaker was. Rune. But wait, that didn't make sense.

"Aren't you one of the Nazi fucks we're about to rip a new asshole into?" Mockshow, standing beside Newter, put voice to my confusion. "If you're trying to be a spy, you're doing an awful job."

Rune squinted at the other girl, the thin cloth mask that covered the lower half of her face not quite entirely disguising her scowl. "I switched sides. Now I'm with Purity and her group. Is that all right with you, or would you like signed and notarized copies of my evil Nazi shit-head exit paperwork?"

"It's okay," another voice spoke up before Mockshow or anyone else could speak. Archive had come forward to stand beside Rune, with Seraph floating off the ground a bit behind her. "She's telling the truth. She helped me escape from the Empire. If it wasn't for Rune, I'd probably still be there."

Something... something in her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. My throat tried to close up, and I felt a slight sweat break out over my skin. Hearing her talk, even though she hadn't said anything wrong or threatening, made my heart start beating so fast I was surprised that it wasn't immediately audible. My entire body stiffened. Fuck, I was practically in combat mode already, for crying out loud.

Why? What the hell was going on? Thinking over what the new Brigade cape had said revealed nothing. Maybe Rune was on the level and maybe she wasn't, but why had Archive's words made me so pissed off for some reason? The way my body reacted, it was like she'd openly threatened my dad or Elle. It didn't make any sense. Her words were simple enough, but hearing them had made me so unnaturally and indescribably angry that it required a _genuine_ effort to avoid punching her in the face.

What the fuck was wrong with me? A side-effect of my power that I didn't understand yet? What was it about this particular girl that made me feel so pissed off all of a sudden?

Before I could get myself back under control, my vision reacted to my unexplained agitation by jumping. Now I was looking back at myself through someone else's eyes. I saw the black suit that I had finally started to customize somewhat lately. Rather than remaining pure black, I had dyed it mostly white, with a little bit of gray. Instead of the old ski mask, I was wearing the sleek looking helmet that covered my whole head, presenting an opaque black glass visor in the front that was supposed to be bulletproof, and left absolutely no expression visible. The rest of the helmet was gray and white.

Honestly, I looked even more like a boy than usual, unless someone looked pretty close. It made me simultaneously proud to wear something so cool, and a bit depressed that I filled it out so poorly.

On the other hand, at least my body hadn't just collapsed the second my consciousness left it. Faultline had helped me adjust it so that the suit would freeze up when I wasn't controlling it. It left me standing as still as a statue, which was a lot less conspicuous than falling over every time my power dragged me into another person's mind.

"Whatever." Rune spoke up from beside me, and I realized belatedly that the person I had jumped into was Archive. The girl whose voice pissed me off so much for absolutely no reason was the person that my power had thrust me into. God, my power could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.

The former Empire cape continued, her attention right on me. Or rather, on my body. "My **point** was, if you were looking for a minotaur to round out your set, you already missed the freak cape. She joined up with the Protectorate yesterday. Not that she's got that bull-man thing going on, but you know. Monster cape, it still would have fit the general aesthetic."

She was talking about the gargoyle, I realized. Yeah, Faultline had been a bit upset that we'd missed the chance to recruit the obvious Case 53. I was pretty sure that her annoyance at the fact that the job for Accord had kept us out of town just long enough to lose that opportunity had contributed to her willingness to track down Kaiser and stop whatever he was doing almost as much as my pleas had.

My curiosity over why I'd had such a negative reaction to hearing Archive speak made me pay a little more attention to the feelings that I could pick up from the girl. She was anxious, worried about Laserdream, and anxious to make sure that the three groups didn't start fighting each other.

She was also _super_ gay. I was only in her head for about a minute or two, and her attention kept drifting toward several of the females in the area. She felt that same twinge of arousal that I'd felt in the past when looking at attractive guys. But every time she did, two things seemed to happen almost simultaneously. She felt confused, and then this crushing guilt popped up for just a second. It was like she couldn't let herself acknowledge her attraction, or that guilt would take over.

Seriously, what the hell had happened to this girl to make her repress herself so much that she couldn't even consciously acknowledge her attraction to herself? It wasn't like being gay was that big of a deal. With Legend out there, hardly anyone outside of actual Nazis even cared that much anymore.

"Uhh, hello?" Rune waved a hand in the direction of Elle and me, and I realized with an inward wince that she wasn't going to get a response. I couldn't move my body from here, and Elle was lost in one of her other worlds. For all intents and purposes, it _looked_ like we were flat out ignoring her. Whoops.

"Look," Rune sounded annoyed at being ignored. "If you're not going to-"

"Ah, do not mind them." Gregor had noticed what was happening and quickly inserted himself into the conversation. "There are simply elements to their, ahh, partnership which leave them occasionally, shall we say... distracted away from the current situation. It is nothing personal."

Archive's attention was drawn to the big guy, and my power jumped me into his gaze just in time for her to say, "It's okay, powers can be... weird."

Simple words. A clearly true sentiment. I'd thought the same thing before, and there was nothing remotely threatening or negative in anything she'd said there.

So why did it **still** make me want to kick her teeth in?

* * *

By the time all three groups had mobilized, I still hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong with me. Part of me was tempted to say something, but I was afraid that Faultline would pull me off the mission if she thought I wasn't up to it. And after the way I'd seen Kaiser treat Laserdream, I flat out refused to risk something like that. I was going to ignore the subconscious anger that kept rising in me every time Archive spoke, and do my best to stay away from the other girl until this was all over.

Later, I could try to find out what the hell it was about her that pissed me off. For now, I focused.

Faultline and the other two team leaders had settled on a plan to hit the Empire's farmhouse base as hard and fast as possible, before they knew what was happening. The idea was to overwhelm Kaiser with so much force that his people had no time to even realize they were under attack before it was over.

To that end, our team was positioned near the south area of the farm. We were flat on our stomachs, watching the distant figures move around between the buildings and through the fields. Or the others were watching, anyway. My current panoptic vision meant my focus was solely here for the moment.

Beside me, Elle whispered innocently, "We are super heroes now?"

Smiling inwardly, I forced the suit to make my head nod slightly. The other girl seemed pleased by that, and focused forward once more. Her voice was even softer than before. "Biff, pow, wham."

It took me a second to realize what she was doing. Then I got it. She was picturing the upcoming fight, and inserting those visual sound effect captions from the positively ancient Batman television series.

Lifting my arm, I gave her as tight of a hug as I could manage. In response, she added, "Zoink."

Chuckling to myself, I decided I needed to know what the others were seeing. To that end, I focused on Shamrock. The other girl was using the scope of her sniper rifle to scan each person present to note where the capes were, repeatedly updating Faultline on their positions. It wasn't hard for me to jump into her vision and start seeing the Empire forces as they went about their day obliviously, entirely unaware of what my power allowed me to see without any problems: the Brigade, rendered invisible by Seraph's power and carried by an equally invisible platform, were floating straight down into the middle of the farm, under the Empire's unsuspecting noses.

The Faithful, I knew, were set up on the north end similar to the way our group was. Between our two teams, we were ready to hit the Empire from both sides. As soon as the third group made their own move.

A bit behind us, Faultline spoke up. "Brigade, are you in position yet?" There was a pause, and then she spoke again. "Sixty seconds, understood."

Sixty seconds, and then we were going to hit the Empire with everything we could. I felt anxious. Was Laserdream still alive? She hadn't looked that good the day before, and I was afraid of the worst. I may not exactly be happy with the authorities, but I really didn't have any reason to hate the Brigade (my weird reaction to Archive's voice notwithstanding). Hell, I had looked up to heroes like Laserdream for a long time. Not as much as I idolized my personal favorite heroine, of course. But then again, she was the most powerful cape in the world, so who _didn't_ idolize Eidolon?

"Fifteen seconds," Faultline announced tersely. "Be ready."

Then it was time. I knew that because I could see through Shamrock's sniper scope as the Brigade abruptly unveiled themselves. The Empire was hit without warning right from the middle of their base before they even realized they were under attack.

While they were still reacting to that, Faultline ordered us to move. Elle and I found our feet together, and ran along with the others. Shamrock stayed behind to cover us, so I had to switch my vision back to panoptic mode, which meant that I couldn't see ahead. But that stopped mattering as much as we got nearer, and would vanish entirely as soon as my power snapped itself into combat mode.

The Empire troops were turning to react to the threat of the Brigade's arrival, and were taken completely by surprise by the arrival of both us and the Faithful coming from the other side. Good, things were going the way we'd hoped. With any luck, this would be over before it really started.

Which, _**obviously**_ was the second that things went wrong.

First, Kaiser strode into view, just entering the bubble of my vision. "Sister!" He called toward the figure of Iron Rain. "And my dear former wife," the latter was directed toward Purity. "I expected you sooner, though I see now that you had to collect your new friends."

" **KAISER**!" The enraged shout came from Lady Photon, who was hovering nearby. "Let Laserdream go."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Kaiser's head tilted that way. "I'm not quite done with her yet. I assure you, once I've gotten everything she has to give, I'll return what's left."

With a scream of fury, Lady Photon unleashed a blast of light that was almost too bright to look at, and looked like it should have obliterated Kaiser right where he stood.

Instead, the beam fizzled down to nothing a foot or so from the man himself, leaving everyone (including me) staring in confusion.

Screaming twice more, Lady Photon threw a couple more blasts. Both of those fizzled as well, with no explanation.

"Ah, yes," Kaiser lifted his head, and I had the impression that he was smiling beneath his helmet. "Did I forget to mention? You aren't the only ones who can make friends, my dear."

With that, the Nazi leader lifted his hand and snapped his fingers once. As he did so, the air all around us shimmered a little bit as figures literally teleported into place.

A lot of figures.

A lot of _cape_ figures. At least a dozen of them. None were any that I'd never seen before, which meant I had no idea what they were capable of. Worse, they were all positioned around the edges of my vision, which meant there were probably even more beyond what I could see.

Kaiser was still talking, addressing Iron Rain. "As it turns out, Gesellschaft has a lot of questions for you, my dear sister. Stealing two of their important graduates, getting one of their strongest allies dropped into the Birdcage due to your ineptitude, _and_ paying off that group of lowlife Undersiders to steal that very sensitive information." He clicked his tongue as though disappointed. "I'd say that you should try to explain your actions, but you know... somehow I doubt this is going to take long enough for that to matter."

"You're a dead man, Kaiser!" Lady Photon vowed from the air.

The man's response to that was a simple head tilt as he considered her words before pivoting on his heel. "I'll be sure to give Laserdream your regards."

With that, the Gesellschaft capes who had surrounded us launched into an attack. And we still had no idea who they were, what they were capable of, or how to fight them.

The true fight had just begun.

 **9-04 – Emma**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

Anne. Anne, my **sister,** was the new Protectorate cape, the new... the new Case 53.

Except wait. She couldn't be a Case 53, because she remembered her name just fine. And she obviously remembered me, and that I was her sister. She seemed to remember all of it, so... so... huh?

While I was standing there gaping, mouth open in shock as I tried to process all of the billions of questions that were stampeding through my brain, Anne grimaced. At least I thought she did. Her face was so different with the beak-shape bulging out that it was kind of hard to read her expressions. A flicker of emotion went through her eyes and then she wrapped both arms around me. "I'm sorry," she apologized quietly. "But if we're going to talk, we need to do it somewhere that isn't here."

Then we were flying. Anne launched herself skyward, wings coming down with a hard _fwoom_ to propel us high into the air. And it took everything I had not to instinctively use my own power. Every last bit of willpower I could manage went into avoiding the reflexive urge to freeze time and escape.

My sister. My sister was a cape. How? What had happened? How was she so different? What the **hell** had happened to change her so much? And why had she joined the Protectorate? What was going on?!

"It's okay, it's all right." Anne clearly thought that my tensed up body and obvious fear was because of the height. "I won't drop you, I promise. We just need to go somewhere a little more private."

She didn't take me far. We landed on the roof of a tall building a few blocks away, and she released me.

I stumbled away, eyes wide as I stared at my own sister, searching for parts of her that I could recognize. Even knowing what I knew about who she was, there wasn't much. She was taller, her skin was different, her face was different, she had _two_ different sets of wings, and even her voice had that hollow-effect that made it sound so different. I **knew** she was Anne, and I still couldn't recognize her. Except for her red hair, like mine. That was the one feature that I could latch onto as familiar.

"A-Anne... Anne, how... what did... how did..." I stammered, tripping over my own words while staring with eyes that kept flicking up and down to take everything in at once. My shock was almost a physical presence, like a man standing behind me, shaking my shoulders while shouting in my ear to point out every little strange thing about the situation until all I could manage was a whine of confusion.

"Shh, shhh, it's okay." Anne was holding up her clawed hands, which didn't really do a lot to ease my rampaging feelings. "It's me, I'm here. I'm going to explain, but you have to calm down, okay, Emma?"

It took me another few seconds, heart beating so fast I thought it might pop out of my chest, before I managed to close my mouth. Tightening my lips to stop from rambling, I made my head nod quickly.

For a moment once I stopped stammering, the two of us simply stood and stared at one another in silence. Everything I wanted to say, everything I wanted to ask, just pulled into a lump in my throat.

Anne was the one who broke the silence with a voice that was clearly nervous in spite of her actual words. "Well, I guess we don't have to argue anymore about who the cute one is, huh?" She let that hang for a couple of seconds before finishing with, "Because there's no way any of that makeup you love so much is going to beat not just two, but four wings." As she spoke, Anne let the subjects of her statement flap out a little bit in demonstration while giving me what looked like a hopeful little smile.

Choking a little, I reached up reflexively to touch her before stopping myself. I let my hand hang in the air between us for a few seconds while struggling to sort out everything I wanted to say. There were so many questions. In the end, however, the single most important one came first. "Are you okay?"

For a face that looked so predatory, Anne's expression was soft. "Oh, Woody. I'm... I'm all right."

Hesitantly, I let my hand inch forward until the tips of my fingers touched her forehead. I felt the hard, almost rock-like surface of her skin before slowly brushing my fingers down to her cheek to set my palm there. I felt tears well up in spite of myself and had to blink them away. "What happened?"

Carefully reaching up to take my hand with her own, mindful of her claws, Anne swallowed hard before speaking. "I'm going to tell you what happened, but you have to stay calm, okay? You can't try to run off or freak out or... anything. It's not your fault. Just stop and listen to everything."

"Not my fault?" I echoed in confusion. "Wh-what's not my fault? Anne, what happened to you?"

After taking another long, deep breath, she told me. She explained what had happened, what our idiot father had done. And through it all, the only thing I could do was stare in open-mouthed shock as the full horror of the situation continued, a tiny voice shouting denials inside my mind with each word.

"Oh my god... oh god..." The words escaped me. The fury at what my father had done was almost overwhelming, but it was far eclipsed by another feeling, one that kept me rooted to the spot. The feeling of shame and guilt. "I'm sorry," I managed to croak out, staring up at my sister. "I'm so sorry, Anne. My—he... he did that because of me, because I didn't—because I made him-because..."

"Hey, hey." Anne's head was shaking as she caught both of my arms. She lowered herself to one knee in front of me, making me look at her. "No, Emma. You've done a lot of things wrong, but **this** was not your fault. You are not responsible for this, at all. This was Dad and me, okay? It's not your fault."

"But-but that thing he had," I stammered in disagreement. "It was for me. He got it for me, because I-"

"We don't even know for sure that it worked," Anne replied firmly, holding my arms tighter.

In spite of myself, I barked a humorless laugh, head shaking almost frantically. "Look at yourself, Anne! Of course it worked. Just—just look! He did- he made this happen because of me, because-"

"It could have been the drug," Anne acknowledged. "Or the drug could have been a placebo, and what happened to me was a normal trigger event. We don't know. They're going to run tests, but so far it's impossible to tell. For one thing, I kept my memory unlike other... monster capes."

"You're not a monster, don't call yourself that." I demanded, staring at her intently. "And it doesn't matter if it was the drug or not. You drank it, you were _in that situation_ because of me, because I wouldn't talk to Dad anymore. He was desperate and he... he just, he just wouldn't **listen.** "

"Dad's actions are _Dad's actions._ " Anne insisted. "You aren't responsible for what he does, Emma. And you're not responsible for the choices that I make either. I chose to drink it, I chose to fight with him. Whatever made me change like this drug or normal trigger, it's not your fault. You didn't do it."

My head shook rapidly, anguish boiling its way up from my stomach. More thoughts than I could individually distinguish rolled through my head, but all I managed to ask was, "What about Mom?"

Flinching slightly, Anne let out a long sigh. "I don't know. We don't know where she is. I've been trying to get a hold of her, but no one's seen her since she visited home for a couple hours and then left again."

"Wait, wait, no one knows where she is?" My eyes widened once more. "Where would she go?"

Anne's head shook. "We don't know. In all the confusion, and everything that's been happening, no one kept track of her. They were watching the house for you, but you never came home. Mom came, then left again. No one's seen her since then, and she's not answering any of her messages. Dad hasn't left the house since then either. They've seen him through the windows, mostly drinking, but he isn't going anywhere. His firm said he called off for a personal emergency. So far, his solution to that emergency seems to be having lots of pizza delivered and drinking every bit of alcohol he can get his hands on."

"But where would Mom go?" I demanded. "And why wouldn't she answer any of her messages. What if something happened to her? What if she's hurt-or—or..." The thought that came made me choke.

"We'll find her." Anne's voice was firm. "I promise, Emma. We'll find out what happened to Mom."

Before I could say anything, however, she continued. "I joined the Protectorate for a reason, Emma. Several really, but one in particular. I joined because they said they'd help me have custody of you."

My head jerked up at that, staring at the other girl. "C-custody? You want—I mean, you really want-"

"Of course I want custody of you, silly girl." Anne shook her head. "You're my sister, Woody. Sure, you make mistakes. You do some stupid and mean stuff. You lost yourself for awhile there. But no matter what mistakes you make, no matter what you do, you'll always be my sister. I love you. I always will."

I felt dizzy from all the emotions, some good and some bad, making their way through me. "But Dad-"

"He doesn't have a choice in the matter," Anne informed me. "It's the Protectorate, Emma. And he's already proven incapable of taking care of either of us. Especially you. He tried to give you a drug. Whether it actually gave powers or not is irrelevant, he bought some untested drug to shove on you."

My emotions were in even worse turmoil. My sister wanted me around. My sister had been horribly mutated because of my father (and because of me, regardless of what she claimed on that front). My sister loved me and wanted me to be with her. But my friends, my team... how would that even work?

I couldn't abandon the Undersiders. We still had work to do, now more than ever. Besides, they were my friends. If there was one thing I would never do again, it was abandon my friends. Not anymore. But how could I stay a part of them if I was living with the newest Protectorate member?

Somehow reading the emotions on my face, Anne moved her hand to gently push my chin up to meet her gaze. "Hey, listen to me, okay?" She stared intently into my eyes, seeming to consider her words for several long seconds before finally speaking. "I won't make you stay with me."

"What—but I—it's not that I don't-" I tried to find the right words to explain the situation, but failed.

Anne didn't seem to mind. She just shook her head. "Look, Emma, you're going to school. You haven't missed a day since you left home. You're going to your community service, you look fed and healthy. I don't know what you're doing or how, but I do know that it seems to be working for you. My messing with that would be a bad idea. I'm not going to try to control you or force you to listen to me."

She heaved a long sigh then, flinching noticeably. "Besides, look at me. I'm not exactly the most subtle person to be around. If I made you stay with me, we'd have two choices. Either you'd be seen in public with the newest Protectorate cape, and become a target for anyone who wants to pick a fight. You'd be in danger, Emma, just because of who I am. Or you'd have to stay at the Protectorate base constantly, never go out with me, never do anything that puts yourself in danger. I don't want that. I don't want you to be a prisoner because of me. I don't want to take you away from whatever you're doing that seems to be working for you. I won't uproot your life just because I want to protect you. That wouldn't be fair.

"So, I'm going to make you a deal." Anne's clawed hand gently and carefully brushed my hair back. "You keep going to school. You keep doing what you're doing, and I won't push, okay? I won't take you away from whatever it is that's keeping you in line. I love you and I want to protect you, but I won't smother you. I just want you to know that I'm here. Anything you need, whenever you need it, I'm here for you. I want to be there for you, but I don't want to do what Dad did. But you have to promise me some things, okay? You have to promise to keep going to school and do the best you can. You have to promise that you're eating right and staying as safe as you can. You have to promise to keep obeying your probation, doing your community service, and taking care of yourself. And most of all, you have to promise to stay in contact. I'm responsible for you, so you have to _talk_ to me. You have to visit me as much as possible, because I miss you, silly little woodpecker. I love you and I miss you. So can you promise me all of that? Promise to take care of yourself and visit and talk to me every night? You have to call me every day, do you understand? Talk to me, help me know that you're okay."

Swallowing the hard lump in my throat, I made myself nod. "I promise I'll talk to you all the time. I'll visit, if... if I can, I mean, did you say you're staying at the Protectorate building?"

"I'll make sure you can visit," Anne assured me. "You can come over and see me any time you want to. We'll keep it quiet so that no one knows why you're there, but you can come up and we'll hang out. We'll eat, watch movies, whatever you want. I just want you to know that I'm here for you. I'm not going to drag you away from whatever you're doing right now, because it seems to be working for you. But I'm not abandoning you either. I love you, Woody. Do you understand all that?"

My head bobbed up and down. "I love you, Anne." The words came naturally, even though it had been so long since I actually said them. I did. I loved my sister, even if she was working with the group that had let Sophia get away with so much. It wasn't her fault. Or totally their fault either. It was the system.

Before I could over-think that too much, I quickly embraced Anne as tightly as I could. The guilt about not telling her the truth about myself and what I was really doing welled up in me, but I forced it down and focused instead on hugging my sister. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry this happened to you."

"Hey," Anne shook her head at me. "Like I said, it's not your fault. It's not. You just take care of yourself. I don't-"

She was interrupted by a loud beep from the metal band around her wrist. Blinking down at it, Anne hesitated before extracting herself. "Just a second," she said to me before touching the band. "Um, yes?"

I couldn't hear the other half of the conversation, but Anne appeared to agree to something before signing off. Then she looked at me. "I'm sorry, I—something's happening just outside of town. There's a fight going on, and the Protectorate wants me to... to help." She trailed off, seeming to flush. "Jeeze, can you believe all this? I'm a cape, Emma. A real cape. How insane is this?"

If only she knew. I managed to keep as straight a face as possible. "It's a lot to take in. But a fight? What kind of fight? You can't-"

"I'll be fine, Emma, I promise." Anne touched my face gently. "After all, we still have to have that dinner together, don't we? How about tonight, after all this is over? We can talk about everything then, figure out exactly how this is going to work."

My head bobbed up and down. "Be careful, Anne. Just... just please be careful. You're right, we have to talk about... about a lot of things."

She promised and then winced. "Here, let me fly you back to school real quick."

I shook my head then quickly. "No, it's okay. I can get down." Pointing to the nearby fire escape, I added. "And the school is right over there. Go ahead. You said there's a fight, so you better hurry. Don't want to be late to your first day on the job."

Giving me a smile that looked disturbingly predatory, Anne launched herself skyward, wings flapping down hard to propel herself higher. She waved down at me, then flew away.

And I fell to the ground, slumping to my knees while tears overwhelmed me. My sister. Dad had ruined her life, taken away everything she might have been and forced her into this... this life. Yes, having powers was cool, but she didn't have a choice. She couldn't turn off her powers and pretend to be normal. She couldn't go to school, she couldn't have a job, she couldn't do _**anything else.**_ My fists balled up and I punched the roof hard. Fuck, fuck, fuck! How could he? What was he thinking?!

The drug. I knew that Anne had to be wrong. What had happened to her had to because of the drug. It had to. Natural triggers didn't result in... in that. If I could figure out where that drug had come from, maybe they would have a way of helping her, of giving her back the _choice_ that had been taken away.

Before I could think any more on that, my phone buzzed urgently. With a shaking hand, I tugged it out of my pocket and answered with a shaking voice. "Y-yeah?"

"Found 'em."

It took me a second to place Tattletale's voice, emotions clouding my thoughts. "What?"

"I said," she repeated with what I knew even from here was a look of pride. "We found them. The hostages. We know where they are."

"You did? You do?" I scrambled back to my feet. "Where? Are you sure?"

"Pretty damn sure," Lisa replied. "So you want us to sit on it or what?"

I'd promised Anne I would keep going to school. But this was Madison and her family! My mind worked rapidly before I compromised. "Hold on." Turning my phone over, I sent my sister a text, explaining that I was sorry but I had to skip the morning of school because I just needed time to think, and that I would make it up later. I promised to take care of any extra work I needed to do, then returned the phone to my ear. "Get everyone suited up," I instructed.

"We're going to rescue some hostages."

 **9-05 – Sophia**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

"Uh, yo, Soph? You awake?"

Fingers snapped a couple of times in front of my face, until my hand caught hold of the offender and twisted enough that Bryce's question turned to yelp. "Ow, okay, you're awake! I got it, jeeze, leggo!"

Releasing his hand once my point was made (namely, don't go snapping fingers in my fucking face), I raised my head to scowl at the boy. Not that I was that upset, but scowling helped cover how much I was fighting the urge to yawn. "I'm fine," I retorted while rising from the bench in the corner of Bryce's parents' garage. "You asked me to come over before school, so here I am. What do you want?"

Actually, calling what Bryce had done 'asking' was doing a disservice to his commitment toward filling up my voice mail inbox and text message history with repeated pleas that I come over absolutely as soon as I could that morning. He restrained himself from calling it an emergency (sheer survival instinct on his part, considering what I'd threatened to do if he ever tried that shit when it wasn't _**actually**_ an emergency), but only just barely. It was clear from the dozens of messages that he wasn't going to let this go until I made an appearance to see just what was so damn important.

So, I'd made a detour on the way to school and come here. As long as I made it into class on time, no one would know or give a shit. I went to class, I did enough of the work to pass (barely), and I did my patrols with the Wards without purposefully antagonizing them. Life went on and I avoided attention.

In the garage, I'd sat down to wait for the impatient tinker teenager to come out and meet me so I could see what bug had crawled up his bonnet. Or however that phrase went. Anyway, while I was waiting, I'd drifted off a little bit. Not completely, but enough that Bryce's appearance at my side had taken me a bit by surprise. Which was another reason for grabbing his fingers like I had. Thankfully, I'd restrained my initial impulse to twist just a bit further. Really, the last thing I needed was to try and explain why I was sitting in some thirteen-year-old's garage breaking his fingers at six o'clock in the morning.

"Right, right!" Abandoning his curiosity about how tired I was, Bryce straightened and started to the door while waving for me to follow. "C'mon, hurry up, Muse should be up by now."

Shaking my head, I started after the kid. Not that he was _that_ much younger than I was, but it definitely felt like it. Especially at times like these. "That's a good point, where the hell **is** Muse? I thought she was staying in here until you found a new ba—oh god, that's why you wanted me to come over."

Looking over his shoulder as we made our way through his back yard and into the alley beyond, Bryce gave me a quick (and not at allreassuring) thumbs up. "Yup, we now have a brand new secret lair. Trust me, you're gonna love it. It's awesome. Aisha found the **perfect** place for us to set up."

"Wait, this is an Aisha plan?" I asked before letting out a long, low breath as that sank in. "Suddenly I've gone from optimistically cautious to genuinely terrified."

"Hey, **my** plans got upgraded to optimistically cautious reactions?" Bryce punched the air. "Sweet!"

"Don't flatter yourself too much," I advised. "The optimistic part is me being pretty sure you're just barely scared enough of me to ask before you do anything too crazy. I don't think Aisha gives a shit."

"I'm telling you, it's a great base," Bryce insisted. "Eesh had her imps scouring everywhere for days, looking for a good place that no one pays attention to, a place we can set up. And she found it."

"She found the perfect place for a secret base," I started. "And it just happens to be close enough to your house that we can walk there without any—oh my god, Bryce, tell me it isn't the old ABB warehouse across the street. Because I swear to Scion, if either of you thought **that** was a good idea..."

"It's not the warehouse," Bryce assured me with a firm shake of his head. "Please, we're not that stupid. The police are still watching that place. Plus there's all these teenagers that like to go in and look around, playing in the 'big bad supervillain lair, ooooh.'" His head shook in disgust. "It's retarded."

Squinting at the boy, I finally made myself ask, "Okay, if it's not in the ABB base, where is it then?"

"In the secret tunnels **under** the ABB base," Bryce was grinning as he flashed two thumbs up this time.

"Come again?" I demanded with a hard stare. "Because I could have sworn you just said, 'Damn, Sophia, you have _severely_ overestimated my intelligence and lack of suicidal stupidity, so let me set up a bunch of super secret tinker equipment in the middle of a secret underground tunnel that happens to belong to the _**only**_ team of super villains in this city that's actually been getting **bigger** this month.'"

"Dude, seriously, it's okay." Bryce insisted. "Just let us tell you about what happened and show it to you. We'll prove it'll work. If you listen to everything and still don't like it, we'll cut out, I swear. Just keep an open mind, okay? Besides, Muse agreed to it, and you know how paranoid she's been."

He had a point. I sighed before giving a single nod. "Fine, show it to me then. But I swear, if I say this place is a bad idea after you give the spiel, I don't want to hear a bunch of whining about moving your shit out of it again, got it? Sticking around some ABB tunnels sounds like a monumentally bad idea."

Mumbling something about how I'd see soon, Bryce led me through the alley and to the street. Instead of turning toward the warehouse, however, he kept moving the other way. We went down another block to one of those tiny parks that never gets used by anyone other than a few neighborhood kids whose parents want them to run around somewhere that was still within shouting distance. There wasn't even a playground or anything. The place was a glorified backyard with a sign dedicating it to a local cape that had died a few years back. Unfortunately, Spriggan hadn't been important enough to merit more than this tiny patch of grass with a single small bathroom in one corner, half-hidden by some trees.

It was toward that bathroom that Bryce headed, which did nothing to raise my opinion of this plan. Shaking my head, I muttered, "How many hobos did you have to kick out of the way to get in here?"

Bryce grabbed the door and held it open while shaking his head. "Nobody hangs out here. Come on, I'll show you how to get down into the tunnel. It took me and Aisha an hour yesterday to figure this out."

Telling myself I was going to regret this, I stepped into the dingy little bathroom. It was barely more than an outhouse, though it did at least have its own sink that was separated from the toilet by a little half-wall that was two bricks wide and three bricks long. I gave the toilet a doubtful look. "Okay, the last time that thing was seriously cleaned, we had a cape for President."

"But there's never been a cape President," Bryce retorted. "I mean, that we know of. My dad has this theory about the last guy and how he ended up in there, but uhh, he's probably just paranoid. Hell, he thinks everyone in charge of things is a cape, even that chick in charge of the whole PRT, Director Yamada, and that's just..." He shook that off. "Point is, no cape Presidents. Pretty sure they check."

"Yeah," I nodded pointedly to him, raising both eyebrows. "Think about that for a second. My point is, if this clubhouse has anything to do with going anywhere near **that,** you guys are on your own."

Bryce actually rolled his eyes while moving to the opposite corner of the bathroom, away from everything. He waved me over while crouching next to what looked like a simple drain in the floor "You're really negative today, you know that? Come on, check this out. It's really sweet."

Snorting at his words, I moved closer to watch. "I'm really negative **every** day, what's your point?"

Shifting a bit so I could see, the boy stuck his fingers into the drain to get a grip on the metal before twisting it counter-clock wise. I heard a click as something locked into place, and then Bryce pulled up.

The drain came at his pull, along with part of the floor. It was a trap door, with the handle disguised as the drain. I wrinkled my nose at the sight. "Do you have any idea what kind of stuff probably fell in that drain? How many times did you wash your hands lately? Never mind, the answer is not enough."

"What are you, my mommy?" Bryce demanded. "It's fine, trust me. Whoever put this in thought of everything. Seriously, look." He shifted around a bit more and lowered the trapdoor so I could see the handle a bit better. When I was looking, he brushed his fingers under it. As he did so, a small spray of liquid fell from a series of tiny holes in the drain. Then Bryce waved his hand toward my face. "See? Smells like oranges. It's some kind of disinfectant system that triggers every time it detect anything near it. And periodically other times, I think. I haven't had a lot of time to check it out yet. But whatever, you wanna know how many times I washed my hands lately? Every time I open this door."

Grudgingly, I nodded. "Better than I thought. Still, how sure are you that it's disinfectant?"

"I stuck some under the scanner that I was making for you," Bryce replied. "It's supposed to let you know if you run into any toxic chemicals or whatever. Trust me, this stuff's just really strong sanitizer."

With that settled, Bryce had me follow him down the ladder that the open trapdoor had revealed. It led down into a tunnel a couple feet taller than I was, and wide enough for both of us to walk side-by-side without being too uncomfortable. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of cement, and there were small lights strung along that led off into the distance where the tunnel moved into a gradual curve.

"Lights are connected to motion sensors," Bryce explained. "Lets you see where you're going and warns people if anyone's coming down the tunnel. It goes under the street and all the way back to the warehouse. The exit on that side is buried under six tons of collapsed rubble."

"That's why you think they're not coming back in here?" I asked. "Because it's blocked on that side?"

He started walking. "Not just that. This whole place was rigged to go up and bring the tunnel down."

My hand caught his arm and turned him to face me before he could take another step. "I'm sorry, what did you say about the tunnel we happen to be standing in right now being rigged to blow?"

"Hey, relax," Bryce pulled free. "Nothing to worry about, Aisha and I already took care of the bombs."

I was starting to get a headache. "Bryce, if there's a single fucking sentence in the English language that is **less** likely to make me relax than 'Aisha and I already took care of the bombs', _**it hasn't been**_ _**invented yet!**_ "

"She sent her imps in here with some of my stuff and we disarmed them remotely," Bryce insisted. " **Trust me,** Sophia, they're gone. They were duds anyway. That's why this place is still here. They had the place rigged to collapse, but whoever did the actual rigging down here fucked it up. The other end of the tunnel, the dozen yards or so? That's buried under so much rubble I doubt they'll ever sort through it. But the rest of it is just fine, because they fucked up wiring the explosives. We disarmed them anyway just to be safe, and now they're completely harmless unless we need them. I've been stripping some of them for wiring parts, along with some of the other stuff that's down here."

"Other stuff?" I echoed. "I thought this place was just a tunnel."

"It's a lot more than that," Bryce grinned at me. "Now come on, lemme show you how much cool shit we've got now. If you're done playing worrywart and fussing over everything like I'm some little baby."

"Kid..." I started before letting out a long breath while forcing myself to stop. Unthinkingly, I muttered, "Let's just say if certain people could hear you, they'd call for a Master/Stranger check."

As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. But Bryce just snorted. "Right, what do you have access to that someone would master or stranger you, your locker combination? I mean, besides us."

Fuck. Now I couldn't decide if was relieved that he hadn't latched onto what I'd said, or annoyed that he thought my personal life outside of _this_ group was so boring that no cape would ever control me. I settled on waving a hand impatiently. "And fuck you too, now show me whatever you're showing me."

We continued down the tunnel, around the bend and to a straight away that led to that collapsed section Bryce had mentioned. About halfway there, however, there was a door on the left side of the tunnel. Bryce reached for the handle, then physically blanched before knocking a couple of times instead.

I raised an eyebrow at that, and he actually blushed a little bit at the look, mumbling under his breath. "I walked in when Muse wasn't expecting me earlier and she almost shot me."

"Taught you to knock before coming into a room though," the girl herself retorted while pulling the door open. She looked at me briefly before stepping out of the way. "Come on in, it's not bad down here. Nicer than most places I've been staying lately, anyway." The older girl was frowning by the end of her statement, her gaze fixated somewhere else as her mind obviously wandered.

I shrugged and stepped inside. The place had obviously been some kind of storeroom, considering the crates and boxes that took up half the space within. The whole room was about twice the size of the old garage, and I could see that Muse had already laid out a camping cot, lantern, and cooler in one corner.

"You're right, it doesn't look half bad," I admitted. "What's in those boxes though?"

Bryce shrugged. "We're still going through it, but it's mostly survival supplies. You know, food, water, batteries, lights, blankets, stuff like that." He nodded toward the cot. "That's where Muse's new bed came from."

"And you're sure they think this place is destroyed?" I asked firmly, watching his reaction.

Bryce's head bobbed quickly. "Yeah, positive. If those explosives hadn't been miswired, it would have been."

Glancing around the room a bit more, I finally nodded. "Right, but listen to me. Your first real project is to put some security in here, all right? You make absolutely sure that no one can get in besides us. Whatever you need to do, you make this place safe."

"Already on it," Bryce replied before amending, "Well, that and fixing up the costumes for you guys. See?" Walking to one of the boxes, he tugged out a familiar pair of gloves and tossed them my way. "Fixed them for you. Plus I made them better."

"Again?" I caught the gloves and looked them over briefly. "You already added the stick to walls shit before. What'd you do with them this time?"

"They still have the electricity and the wall-cling," Bryce assured me "But I beefed up the max charge setting for those big guys that don't wanna go down. Plus, something **really** fucking cool. This other stuff? That's nice and all. Wall climbing was my best thing before, but this? This is actual tinker shit."

"What did you make?" I asked while carefully sliding my hands into the gloves.

"Okay, do this." Bryce instructed, holding his arm with the elbow bent. His hand was faced forward, palm out and fingers spread, almost like he was waiting for a high five. As I was watching, he closed his fingers together, then spread them apart real quick before shoving his hand forward, extending his arm fully. "Make sure you do this part," he added, showing me the fingers closing and opening again.

I shrugged and followed his instructions, snapping my fingers together and then apart again before shoving my hand forward. The second my arm was at full extension, a gleaming blue shield appeared in midair, about the size of a manhole cover. It hovered there where my hand had been while I stared.

"Fuck yeah!" Bryce punched the air. "Stationary forcefield generator! I'm not _exactly_ sure how strong they are, but Muse helped me test one with her gun and it held up to six shots before it broke. Otherwise, they last for about sixty seconds, and you can have four of them up at once." He eyed me, and I saw the need for praise in his eyes as he not-so-casually asked, "Pretty cool, huh?"

I didn't have to lie. "Yeah, Bryce, they're pretty cool. You did good work." Looking up, I nodded toward the other girl in the room. "What about her? Weren't you fixing something up?"

"Shit yeah," the boy was grinning. "Wait til you see what we're setting her up with. Trust me, you're gonna be super jealous. Just gotta make it look like she's an actual cape, you know? I mean, a non-tinker cape. Might look a little weird otherwise, you both being tinkers. Don't wanna give anyone the idea that there's a real tinker behind you babes."

"Still not quite there on the survival instinct thing, is he?" I addressed Muse.

She shrugged. "Eh, it's a work in progress." Clearing her throat then, the girl added, "I looked over all those papers you said that ABB girl gave you."

"Yeah, about that..." Bryce was squinting at me. "Tell me why she came to talk to you again?"

I repeated the lie I'd made up originally. "Like I said, she followed me home after the mall or something, I'm not sure. All I know is that she tracked me down and said she'd keep quiet about who I was and all if I helped rescue her sister." It was as close to the truth as I'd been able to come without revealing my third identity. No, first—wait, second. Second identity. They went Sophia, Shadow Stalker, and then Hinder. God, keeping them in order was annoying as shit sometimes.

"And now we've gotta help some punk gangbanger bitch," Bryce complained. "Just because she's blackmailing us."

"Blackmailing me," I pointed out. "She doesn't know anything about you guys."

"And," Muse added, "If her sister's been kidnapped, saving her is the right thing to do."

Bryce sighed and waved that off. "I know, I know. I'm not really complaining. I just don't like that she threatened you, Sophia." He glowered then. "You don't get people to do what you want by threatening to expose them. You fucking ask for help."

"I'm pretty sure she's desperate," I said quietly before looking at Muse. "Anyway, what did you find?"

"Not much," she admitted. "According to this girl's information, her sister could be in one of six different places, any of which would be a bitch and a half to search and clear out. Once my stuff is ready, you and I can go with Imp into whichever one looks easiest to deal with. It's probably not the right place, but we can call it a test run, just to see how well the three of us work together in the field and how well Foil's intel holds up."

"Speaking of which," Bryce cut in. "When you guys do go after these places, try not to look like you know where all their defenses are or whatever. Let a couple trip you up."

"Why?" I demanded. "You want us to play on hard mode or something?"

His head shook. "No, because if some cape group starts magically outwitting all of Lung's security, don't you think he might start asking himself who had access to all the information about it? He starts comparing what each of his people knew against what these intruders seemed to know, sooner or later he'll figure it out. But if we bumble into a couple defenses that she _did_ tell us about and act like we didn't know about them..."

"It'll throw him off the trail," Muse finished, smiling a little. "Good job, kid." She ruffled his hair briefly before looking at me. "Don't you have class to get to?"

I groaned, and right on the end of it, my phone rang. I looked down at it and frowned at the PRT number displayed on the screen. "What the fuck, I'm not that late." Sighing, I tapped the button to accept the call, turning away. "Yeah, yeah, I'm on my wa-"

"Shadow Stalker," an unfamiliar voice spoke firmly. "You are directed to join up with the rest of your team to assist in the handling of a parahuman incursion at the Bronzefield Detention Center for Juvenile Offenders."

Frowning, I chose my words carefully. "Uh, isn't someone else working on that project? I've got class."

"Negative," the male voice replied. "Protectorate and ally resources are directed toward other matters. The Wards are the only nearby parahuman team near enough to respond. You have been excused from morning classes for the time being. Please proceed quickly, the situation is... escalating."

"Hold on," I looked to the other two. "I gotta go. Science partner freaking out, ya know."

Muse was squinting at me, but said nothing. Bryce just held his hand out. "Gloves?"

I quickly pulled them off and tossed the gloves to him before heading out the way we'd come. I didn't say anything again until I was safely up the ladder and out of that restroom, striding across the park. Finally, I put the phone back to my ear. "I can talk now, who the fuck is attacking the Juvie prison?"

"Specific invader identities and number are unknown," the annoyingly unhelpful voice replied. "Please make all effort to identify them yourself when you arrive on the scene. Your team will meet you at the PRT building. But you must-"

"Hurry, yeah, I got it." I retorted. "I'll be there as soon as I can. And thanks for all the information, you're just _amazing_ at this whole 'support' job."

Sighing, I disconnected and started to run down the street in the opposite direction from the school.

Some unknown cape or group of capes was attacking Kiddie Prison? Why? What the hell did they want? Who were they? More importantly, what the fuck was the Protectorate dealing with that meant they couldn't bother to send a couple capes to handle a freaking prison break-in?

And why did I feel like I was going to regret ever asking any of those questions?

 **9-06 – Madison**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

Things weren't exactly progressing _exactly_ the way we'd hoped. Which probably had something to do with the fact there were about three times as many Nazis involved than any of us expected there to be. We had thought that we were surrounding Kaiser, but in reality, his reinforcements were the ones who had surrounded **us.** It was chaos incarnate. I had been in a few cape fights by this point (a couple of them even on purpose), but this one eclipsed any of the others in both scope and terror. The amount of powers being thrown around, the fact that we had no idea what most of these newly arrived capes were capable of, the fear of what might be happening to Laserdream, all of it made the situation worse.

A week or two ago, I would have been caught flatfooted, staring in shock around us while the fight went on. I probably would have been far more of a liability to the Brigade than an asset with my gawking. Now, however, things were different. Not that I didn't freeze at all. I did. Powers were being thrown around, people were shouting, in the background I could hear Lady Photon bellow Kaiser's name, and my brain tried to lock up. It tried to focus on everything that was happening, making me an easy target. But I snapped myself out of it with a single thought, a single goal that made everything else fall into place so that I could focus through the terror. A single fact that outweighed all of the others, including the bit about how screwed we all suddenly were, and made all of that seem unimportant.

 _Laserdream was still in danger, and if we failed, that piece of shit was going to kill her._

Jerking my body into action felt like breaking through the surface of the pool after being underwater for a long time. I spun around toward the nearest sign of movement, just in time to spot a figure standing only a few yards away. She was one of the newly arrived capes, a woman in an off green costume complete with scales and claws on the metallic gloves that she wore. On top of that, she held a glossy black metal spear in one hand that had a wicked looking electric prod at the end.

I'd barely had a chance to register the woman's presence before she reared back her head and then **spat** at me. Yeah, spit. A lot of it. She literally hocked up a greenish loogie the size of a basketball and sent it flying in my direction. You know, because I always end up with the polite, cute powers trying to kill me. Just once I wanted to run into a murderous adorable kitty that would try to lick me to death.

Thankfully, liquid was something that my field could take care of. I brought it up, letting the (eww) green glob of spit sail right through and out of sight before running. Not away from her, in spite of every protest from the part of my brain that was kind of interested in staying alive, thanks. No, I ran directly toward the spitting-woman. And as I moved forward, I focused on my power, planning ahead.

In the background while running forward, I could see a brute-empowered Panacea, Browbeat, and Fleur working together to fight against a rapidly growing Menja, trying to put her down before she got too much bigger. I saw Purity throw a beam of energy that should have demolished half of the opponents, only for the beam to vanish once again while one of the Gesellschaft capes began to glow with the same sort of energy that the Faithful leader was throwing around. I saw Hookwolf in full bladed horror mode trying repeatedly to stab that new Ariadne cape from Faultline's Crew, only to miss with every blow while she basically danced around him. I saw all of that and more with every step that I took. There were fights going on in every corner of the field, everywhere I looked. It was insane.

And then there was my opponent. She spat at me again as I ran for her, but I simply absorbed it again before reaching up and back with one hand as though I was holding onto something, then brought my arm down hard and fast while focusing on my power to summon one of my stored objects.

The woman reacted instantly, raising that wicked spear to block the downward thrust of my arm. Clearly she had been briefed and knew I was about to summon a weapon into my descending hand.

Which was why the object I had summoned didn't appear in my very obvious and attention-getting hand. Instead, the volleyball launched itself straight away from my chest like it was being shot out of a cannon. The white orb flew up and out, smacking straight into the woman's face while she was focused on my empty hand. There was a solid _thunk_ noise as the ball struck her just under the nose. She reeled backwards with a cry, head snapped to the side from the force of the volleyball's impact.

And _then_ I summoned the baton that Iron Rain had provided, calling it into my descending hand just in time to **slam** it into the recoiling woman's shoulder as hard as I could. Before she could recover from that, or even catch her balance, I dropped to a crouch and brought my baton into the side of her knee.

Iron Rain's tutelage, again. Don't give the opponent time to recover. Don't play nice. Hit their weak points and keep hitting them until they stop fighting back. If you're going to fight, fight all the way. Don't half-ass it. In a real fight, there's no such thing as cheating, just winning and losing. Don't lose.

The blow to her knee brought the woman down to the ground. I saw her mouth open as though trying to spit again. Before she could, I slammed the baton into that open mouth, knocking several teeth flying while the woman herself collapsed onto her side with a cry of pain, followed up by a flurry of German.

"See, I _could_ use my German translation book to figure out what you just said," I informed her, "But you're probably just frantically apologizing for having such lame powers. I mean really, acid spit?"

"Archive, watch out!" Shielder's warning shout broke through my moment of accomplishment.

Right, apparently a bit of training wasn't enough to get rid of _all_ tunnel vision. I spun around, hand raised defensively just in time to see one of Shielder's glowing blue forcefields appear directly in front of me about a half second before Stormtiger would have shredded me with one of his air blades.

"Oh," I blurted once the shock of suddenly finding the Nazi fighter right behind me had worn off enough so I could find my voice once more. "Got your wrist fixed up, huh? That's uhh, good, I guess." Because yeah, he didn't seem injured at all. Extraordinarily pissed off, yes, but not injured. And he demonstrated both by flinging himself up and over the forcefield to land on the other side of me, claws lashing out once more so fast that I could barely _comprehend_ that he was moving, let alone react to it.

But I didn't have to react to it, because my teammate was there. Shielder put himself between us, both hands raised. Two small forcefields, each just large enough to block the man's air-claws, appeared.

Eric spoke then, his attention on Stormtiger, who was rebounding for another attack. "I'm not usually one for offense." He raised another shield to block the concussive blast as Stormtiger detonated his air claws, safely trapping the force while he continued to speak. "I mean look at my name. Look at my powers. Defense. I save people, I protect them. I stop people like you from hurting anyone. That's my job. That's my pleasure. I shield people. Can't get much more defensive than that, can you?"

Stormtiger kept trying to attack, but Shielder kept blocking every attempt, making it look casual while he continued to speak. "But you see, you did something really stupid. You fucked with the people I care about. You took Archive. You took _ **Laserdream.**_ And that, well, that makes me feel like maybe it's okay to stop playing defense for once. Maybe, just maybe, this time... I'll play a little offense."

With that, Shielder took one step back and brought his hands up together. This time, the forcefield that he summoned was much larger, about five feet across and seven feet high. The glowing blue shield shimmered into existence. But it didn't stay where it was. No. Instead, as the boy thrust his hands out, the forcefield launched itself forward. It **slammed** into Stormtiger with the force of a speeding truck, careened across the open field with the Nazi flattened against it like a bug on a windshield until it reached the silo, and then proceeded to crash straight through it with the man before Eric finally let up.

Breathing hard, Shielder helped me to my feet. The two of us took a second to glance around. Even without Stormtiger or acid-spit girl, things were still looking pretty bad. I saw Flashbang and Newter lying motionless on the ground while some kind of mutated and animated tractor stood guard over them with the smallest member of Faultline's crew riding atop it. Elsewhere, Browbeat was being hurled across the field by the now-gigantic Menja. Night was trying to get around to a point of being unobserved, but Logi (also annoyingly uninjured) and two of the Gesellschaft capes were covering her. I didn't know where Fog was, but there was no sign of him in either form anywhere.

Several of the enemy capes were down as well, including Alabaster, who had been trapped in a large pile of Gregor the Snail's fast-hardening containment foam-like spray. So we weren't completely lost, though the fight was definitely going in Kaiser's favor. He had more capes standing than we did.

"Hey, Gigantress!" Seraph's voice bellowed, and I turned my head quickly to see the blonde girl hovering in front of the massive figure of Menja. "You want a real fight?"

In the next moment, Seraph's figure abruptly grew until she was the same size as Menja. The obvious light-construct stood there, cracking her head to either side before lifting her glowing sword with a gesture. "No one ever said I had to make things the same size."

With a growl of obvious anger, Menja brought her spear up and around, thrusting it straight at the giant figure of Seraph. The spear thrust straight... _through_ Victoria like she wasn't even there.

Because she wasn't. The image of her giant self was just that: an image. The spear thrust through it like it was smoke. And **then** it turned solid, trapping the spear as well as Menja's outstretched hands in the middle of it.

"Of course," Seraph's voice was coming from behind Menja now, as she revealed herself as her normal size, hovering there in the air. "No one said I had to play fair either."

In the next second, the hologram of the giant Seraph's head disappeared, revealing Manpower. The big man stood on an invisible platform directly in front of the trapped Menja. Before she could react, he _**lashed**_ out with a blow that sent even the giant woman's head snapping backwards.

The two of them didn't give Menja any time to recover or escape. Seraph kept her trapped, while Manpower wailed on her until the woman shrank back to her normal size, battered and bruised. She was done.

It wasn't enough. And it was about to get worse. Before Shielder or I could do anything else to help, the Gesellschaft cape that had been glowing with the same kind of energy that Purity had been throwing around finally made his move. Barking an order in German, he threw his hands out to either side.

"Shit!" Shielder cursed, grabbing onto me before summoning what had to be his strongest forcefield.

He was just in time, because in the next instant, the whole world seemed to light up. The enemy cape, who had _obviously_ been absorbing every bit of energy that had been flung around, unleashed all of it in a simultaneous series of lasers that shot out in every direction. They weren't random either. They were all carefully targeted. I saw Lightstar take a shot through the shoulder that spun him around. I saw Gregor take three right to the front, one of which tore right through him and left him unmoving on the ground. Two more beams struck Rune off of her flying chunk of debris, while yet another cut through Mockshow, dropping both the girl and her mechanical companion to the ground. Panacea was hit by at least four of the lasers, while another went flying off into the distance where Shamrock had been left to snipe with her rifle. Each and every person on our side was struck by the chaotic laser show.

When the dust cleared, only a few of us were standing. Shielder and I were both up. Seraph had easily blocked the attack with a summoned construct, as had Iron Rain with several chunks of metal. Purity was still up, flying high over head. And that was it. Those were the only people still standing. Five of us. Meanwhile, on the other side there were... well, too many. Far too many.

"Well," Kaiser announced from the direction of the barn, sounding as smug as ever. "I suppose that went about as well as you could expect, right, my dear dyke of a sister? Regret crossing me yet?"

It wasn't Iron Rain who replied, but Purity. She had landed behind Kaiser, and shoved her hand up against his back. "Not as much as you'll regret every mistake you ever made. See, I remember your new friend over there now. Dellingr, right? Absorbs energy for his attacks, but only energy he can see. Guess what, prick? He can't see anything from this range."

"That right?" Seraph landed directly in front of the man, her own hand held up toward his chest. "How about I just block his view and shove a dozen spears through your worthless corpse then, you fucking piece of shit?"

Standing perfectly still with the Purity's hand against his back and Seraph's against his chest, Kaiser shook his head. "Of all the things you ever learned from me, dear wife, one would think that the most important lesson would stick. Don't say what you're going to do, my lovely lover. Just do it."

He nodded toward another of the Gesellschaft capes. The figure raised a hand, snapping his fingers audibly. As he did so, Purity screamed and collapsed, crashing to the ground even as her knee was abruptly bent the wrong way, teeth went flying from her mouth, and blood spilled everywhere.

At the same time, Seraph collapsed as well. She was covered in injuries that hadn't been there before, and groaned in pain.

Worse, Menja, who _**had**_ been down for the count, was picking herself up off the ground. She looked perfectly fine.

"Purity, meet Rache." Kaiser gestured toward the figure. "This lovely man switches one person's injuries onto any other person. I can't begin to tell you how useful he's made himself already. But you know, I assume you're starting to understand a little bit now, hmm?"

Wait. Transferred injuries? Obviously Seraph had received the injuries that Manpower had inflicted onto Menja, who was perfectly fine now. And the injuries that Purity had received, they were familiar. They were-

Shielder collapsed next to me, screaming in pain as acid suddenly covered his back. He was on the ground, writhing in agony while I spun toward the now-completely uninjured spitting-woman. She was completely fine by that point, without any trace of injury.

Before either of us could move, before I could even respond to her reappearance, we were cut off by a scream. It was an almost-inhuman sound, a wail of fury that was so sudden and so terrifying it might as well have come from a mythological banshee. There was no humanity behind the scream, only fury.

Every head snapped in that direction, and I saw that my first count had been wrong. There was a sixth person that hadn't been taken by the massive attack. Ariadne. She was crouched over the fallen figure of Labyrinth, and I could see where several of the lasers had cut through her. They were near enough that I could see the robed girl's chest rise and fall sporadically, but it was obvious that she was in bad shape. Very bad shape. If the girl didn't get help soon, she wasn't going to make it.

"I thought she was mute," I managed to get out, just before another of those awful, humanity-less screams erupted from the figure.

Then she was on her feet and running, straight at the cape who had fired all those lasers. This time, all I could do was stand there and stare, while Ariadne charged straight on, screaming the whole way. As she ran, a small stone was kicked up into the air. The girl caught it with one hand and gave the rock a violent side-long throw. It came spinning through the air before smacking right into acid-spit girl's forehead, knocking her to the ground once more. She was down as fast as she'd gotten back up, and Ariadne had done it without even looking our way. She'd put the figure down purely as an after-thought, with no more attention than a normal person casually tossing a crumpled bit of paper toward a trashcan on their way out of a room.

"Shielder!" I dropped next to Eric, hissing as the sight of his back. "Oh fuck, fuck, are you okay?"

He grimaced, head shaking while making a noise of pain. "Not... uggnnn... particularly. Uggnn, this isn't fun, I'll tell you that much. What's going on?"

"Uhhh," I looked up, staring ahead as the screaming figure that was Ariadne proceeded to _**tear**_ into the Gesellschaft and Empire ranks. While I watched in open awe, she ripped through them. Every move they made, she seemed to know about. Every power they threw at her hit one of their own members. Everything they did, she was reacting to before they even did it.

Hookwolf launched himself at her, only to find himself stabbing two of his claws through Crusader. A second later, Menja's attempt to kick her actually hit Hookwolf instead. Another figure tried to raise the ground itself to trap the girl, but only ended up trapping one of his own teammate's. The man who transferred injuries into other people, Rache, was trying to get a good look at her, but the girl kept using other people for cover while she approached him. There were simply _too many_ enemy capes, and she seemed to know absolutely every move they were going to make. She practically danced through their every effort to hit her. From a distance, it looked like they were all fighting **each other** while Ariadne happened to be moving through the middle of it all.

My jaw was almost literally on the ground. "We—she... she's winning..." I stammered. "She's fighting all of them and she's winning."

Dellingr even went as far as unleashing what had to be the last of the energy he'd absorbed into a flurry of lasers targeting the rampaging figure. It didn't matter. She evaded every last one of them, and all he succeeded in doing was putting down four of his own teammates. Then Ariadne was on him, leg snapping up in a kick that knocked him backwards before she leapt off of his falling body and threw herself against Rache, who was still frantically backing up.

Ariadne crashed into the man, lashing out with two simultaneous smacks against the man's _eyes._ He screamed in pain and staggered, clearly unable to see anything.

Then... well, she took him apart. He swung a fist blindly, and Ariadne caught and twisted it until the **snap** was audible. She proceeded to break both of his wrists, one arm, the leg he tried to kick her with, and then knocked him off his feet before repeatedly kicking the man so hard I could practically hear his ribs break with each thrust of her leg.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the fight was over. Ariadne just sort of collapsed. I couldn't figure out who had finally managed to hit her while she was wailing on the unmoving figure that had hurt Labyrinth, but someone must have. She went down, leaving about a half dozen Nazi capes still standing.

A half dozen wasn't nearly the thirteen that had been up before Ariadne made her terrifying rush through the middle of them. But it was still too many for us to have a chance against.

And yet, in the next moment, the sound of a helicopter arriving drew everyone's attention upward. A massive chopper came hovering down toward the ground, with a familiar figure standing in the doorway: Armsmaster.

The Protectorate leader leapt free of the helicopter, dropping to the ground with his halberd held high. He was joined a moment later by Dauntless, Assault, Battery, and Triumph.

Then, from the other side of the farmland, I saw a huge, demonic-like gargoyle figure fly straight down. It was Riposte, the newest addition to the Protectorate, whose membership had just been announced the day before. The obvious Case 53 was holding Prism to her chest while she descended, releasing the girl at the last second so that she could split into three separate selves just before landing on the ground.

The Protectorate had arrived, and this time the Gesellschaft capes really _were_ surrounded.

Eric's pained gasp caught my attention, and I looked down to see him pointing toward the barn. "Kaiser..." He got out, the agony in his voice obvious. "Going... going in."

He was right. Kaiser was retreating into the barn, with Iron Rain following after him at a sprint.

"Get... sister," the boy urged. "Save her, uuggnnn, before he gets away again."

Before I could respond, another voice spoke up. "We will."

Turning, I found Brandish standing there, offering her hand to me. She looked grim and bloodied, but determined. "I can't save my niece and beat Kaiser without help, Archive. Are you good?"

Shaking myself off after glancing briefly to where the Protectorate were engaging the Nazis, I nodded once. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Good," Brandish turned and began to run toward the barn, expecting me to follow.

"Then let's finish this."

 **9-07 – Emma**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

In the alley outside of the building that was both the Undersider base and my home away from home, I spent a brief, time-stopped minute changing into my costume before going inside. Again, the thought of how Alec and Tyler would react to my school uniform was enough to make my cheeks match my hair. Those two had enough ammo as it was, I wasn't about to toss them the keys to the nuclear arsenal.

Rather than bother opening the door, I just moved through it before letting time resume. The second I did, the sound of Rachel's raised voice drew my attention immediately toward the second door on the left, where the main kitchen was. Whatever was going on, she sounded pretty ticked off. Even for her.

Quickly moving that way, I reached the other room in time to see Rachel cock her fist and start to take a swing. Her target: Lisa. Alec and Tyler were standing on the other end of the kitchen by the sinks.

Freezing time instinctively, I lunged forward to put myself between the two of them. At first, I put my hands up, preparing to catch Rachel's arm once time resumed so I could throw her off balance. Then I stopped, frowning. That wasn't right. It might work for someone else, but Rachel was different.

Instead of stopping her, I lowered my hand. Inwardly cursing about how much this was going to fucking hurt, I tried to brace myself as much as possible before releasing my power to let time resume.

I had thought that I was ready. I was wrong. Rachel's fist collided with the side of my face hard enough to snap my head around. Even preparing myself as I had (at least tried to), the pain still made me yelp.

It hurt. Ow, ow, ow. But at least I got to hear both girls gasp, each surprised by my sudden appearance.

In spite of the pain in my jaw and cheek, I forced myself to straighten up as soon as possible. Part of me wanted to grab my face and whimper, but I forced that part down. I took the punch, shook it off as much as I could, and turned back to face Rachel once more. I spoke a single, firm word. "Stop."

For a couple of seconds, the other girl's expression flickered between anger and confusion. Before she could find her voice, I pressed on, my gaze locked onto hers. "I'm the team leader, you understand? That means if someone fucks with anyone on our team, they're fucking with me. Bad guys, good guys, heroes, villains, cops, rivals, bosses, I don't care who they are or what titles they use. I don't care what rules they're clinging to or what they think we owe them. They fuck with one of us, any of us, and I will put a stop to it. And that includes members _of_ this team. You punch Lisa, you better be ready to punch me too. Lisa screws with your head, she better be ready to screw with mine. _Anyone_ fucks with someone on this team, they fuck with me too." Before Alec and Tyler could open their mouths, I held a finger up in their direction without taking my gaze off of Rachel. "Not a word out of either of you."

Still staring into the other girl's gaze, I pushed on. "You have a problem with Lisa or anyone else on this team? You either tell me so I can fucking deal with it, or you come take another swing at me instead. Those are your options, Rachel. You can leave and do this on your own, or you can stay and be a part of the team. If you stay, you follow my rules. And my rules are if you're going to hit a teammate, you sure as hell better hit me first because **nobody** fucks with my team. Not even my team."

Breathing out then, cheek still stinging, I asked, "With that in mind, what happened? What's wrong?"

Still breathing hard, clearly having a hard time shifting mental gears, Rachel took a moment to respond. Finally, she snarled the words, "We don't need another team member. It's stupid."

Blinking at that, I turned toward Tattletale. "What team member? What's she talking about?"

Lisa exhaled, using a finger to brush a loose bit of hair back behind her ear. "It's not a big deal. The boss is just sending us a replacement for Grue. He thought we'd be glad to have more help."

"We don't replace Grue!" Bitch blurted from behind me. "Fuck him! He's a traitor, don't need another."

"Just because Grue switched sides doesn't mean every other member we get is going to," Lisa tried to tell the girl. "And we don't really get a choice here. He's the boss, he's the one that brought most of us together **and** set us up in this place. He says we need this guy and that he's part of the team."

Before Rachel could go off on another tirade, I held a hand up to quiet her while focusing on Lisa. "Okay, first, this whole secret boss that none of us know anything about is getting really old. I don't care what you have to do, but you talk to him and arrange a meeting at some point. Enough of this stupid telephone game where you pass messages along. If we work for him, we work for him. He wants to hide his identity, fine. That's part of the gig. But he talks to us directly or he can go screw himself."

Lisa didn't look happy about that, but she didn't argue so I went on. "Second, where did this whole 'new team member' thing come from? You didn't say anything about it over the phone."

She shrugged. "After I hung up with you, I called the boss to ask if he could arrange transportation to get out where the Merchants are. That's when he said that he was sending the new guy over to meet us."

"You mean he wants us to take a brand new cape we've never even seen before out into the field?" I demanded while staring at her. "Is this mystery boss completely stupid or just crazy?"

Flinching, Lisa replied, "He has his reasons for deciding to do something. Trust me, if the boss says taking this guy is the best option and that he can help, it's true. He's very good at that kind of planning."

Letting out a long breath, I made myself nod. "Fine. We'll see what happens. I meant what I said. Arrange a meeting so we can talk to this 'boss' in person. But we'll give this new guy a chance."

When Rachel started to complain, I turned to her. "Should I blame you for Grue switching sides?"

She blinked once at me before snarling, "Fuck you. That wasn't my fault. I didn't do any-"

"Yeah, neither did this guy," I interrupted. "Grue's turn wasn't your fault, and it wasn't _this guy's_ fault either. So whoever he is, don't take it out on him. Maybe he'll suck and we'll bounce him. Trust me, I don't give a shit who this 'boss' of ours is. If this new guy doesn't fit, I swear to you that we will toss his ass out faster than he can blink. But we judge him based on what **he** does, not what Grue did. Got it?"

Muttering an agreement under her breath, Rachel looked away. Taking that as the best I was going to get, I gestured. "You guys should go get changed. Costumes, weapons, dogs, whatever you need. Get ready to go so we can head out as soon as this new guy shows up. I want to hit those Merchant assholes hard and fast before anything else happens to those hostages they've got."

Tyler, Rachel, and Alec started out of the room. Lisa stayed. She was watching me with a curious look. When I glanced toward her, she arched an eyebrow. "Something happened at school, didn't it?"

My mouth opened and shut. Fuck. I had no idea if it was her power or if she was just that good at reading people. "It's not-" I started to say that it wasn't a big deal, but stopped myself. It kind of was. And if I tried to hide or downplay it, that kind of secret had a way of popping out at the worst time.

So I stopped, took a breath, and let it out before speaking again. "My sister's a cape."

It only took the other girl a moment. I saw the calculation behind her eyes, the thought process speeding by rapidly before she inclined her head at the realization. "The Protectorate gargoyle."

"My dad," I replied simply, feeling the anger rise up in me again. "He had this... this vial. It was supposed to give me powers or something. She fought with him and drank it instead. Now she's..."

"A Case 53," Lisa finished before correcting herself. "Or not exactly, considering she has her memory." Watching me carefully, the blonde girl asked, "What did she want? How much did you tell her?"

I shrugged. "She wanted to check on me. She wanted me to know what happened. And I didn't tell her anything. I'm not _going_ to tell her anything. Anne wouldn't understand, and I'm not going to put her in the position of choosing between me and the Protectorate. They can help her deal with... with everything that happened to her. They're probably the best ones for it outside of Faultline."

Lisa's expression darkened a little bit. "Just because she has a couple of Case 53's on her team doesn't make her an expert. The Protectorate has more resources, they can spin her better in the media, they-"

"I know," I interrupted. "You don't have to give the whole 'Faultline sucks' speech again, Leese."

Changing the subject, Lisa asked, "Did she ask you to stay with her? How's that supposed to work?"

"No," I shook my head. "She wants me to check in, spend some time with her, keep in touch, but she said she doesn't want to change my life that much. She knows that if I was living with her, everyone would know who I was, and she wants me to... to have a chance to be normal." God, even saying it out loud like that made me feel like scum. Anne had no idea, and it was going to have to stay that way.

From the look on her face, Lisa was thinking along the same lines. The girl watched me for a moment, obviously thinking carefully about something before she spoke again. "How do you feel about that?"

"What?" I blinked before waving that off distractedly. "I'll deal with it later. Right now, we need to-"

"No." The tone of Lisa's voice changed slightly, turning more serious in a way that caught my attention, and I focused on her as she continued. "We'll deal with it now, or there's no point to any of this."

Frowning at that, I lifted my chin while staring back at the other girl. "No point to what, exactly?"

Lisa stepped around to the nearby counter and boosted herself up to sit on it before replying with a tone that was far too casual considering her actual words, "What kind of traitor are you, exactly?"

"What?" I blurted, mouth hanging open for a second. "What do you—I'm not a—I mean—huh?"

"Wasn't a trick question," Lisa replied easily. "You betray us, or you betray your sister, the one member of your family that's still completely on your side and never did anything wrong. So which is it going to be?" Before I could summon a response, she continued, eyes never leaving mine. "Not that being a traitor is anything new to you, is it? Not after the way you treated your best friend. Ouch."

It was an almost physical blow. Actually, I'd been punched just a couple minutes earlier, and I preferred it to this. My mouth opened once more, but I couldn't find any words for a second. "I... I... what do..." Forcing my head to shake, I finally managed, "I'm not betraying you guys. I told you before, I want-"

"To make up for what you did, I know." Lisa nodded. "But you need to do something else first. You can't make up for what you did, you can't move on, you can't _**really**_ choose us until you acknowledge why you betrayed your friend the first time. You either stop lying to yourself, stop beating around the bush and get to the truth about what you did and why, or you'll just do it again."

I started to say something, reflexively needing to defend myself, but Lisa pushed off the counter to stand once again. Her illusion of casualness was gone. "Don't," she interrupted. "Don't talk. Don't make excuses. Don't say the same things over and over again. Just pay attention, because this is real, Emma. This is the real deal, no games. No take-backs. You wanna meet the boss? You want to have a prayer of surviving in this sea of sharks without being eaten alive? Then you need to stop lying to yourself and to everyone else about what made you do everything you did wrong. You need to see the truth, all of it."

She was standing directly in front of me by that point, her face inches from mine. "Tell me the truth, Emma. Tell yourself the truth. No one cares about your self-flagellation. I don't want to hear about how bad you feel about it or how contrite you are. I don't want to hear about all the puppies you want to save to make up for it, or how many houses you're going to buy her with your share. I want the truth. That's it. Tell me the truth. No lies, no promises, no guessing. Why did you betray Taylor Hebert? Why did you hurt her so bad? Why did you _like_ hurting her? You know why. Deep down, you always did."

Her voice kept rising with each word, and the pressure continued to mount. I shifted, backing against the opposite counter while Lisa kept pace with me. My power called to me, begging me to escape into the silence and solitude of its embrace. But I resisted. My mouth opened and shut, no words emerging.

Lisa continued, voice growing deeper as she leaned even closer. "You know what you did, what made it feel so good, what made you keep doing it. So tell me. Tell me! Why did you betray Taylor Hebert!"

"I was scared!" I blurted, the words escaping me suddenly and without conscious thought. "I betrayed her because I was afraid! Because those fu-fucking assholes were gonna hurt me, or rape me, or kill me! They were going to cut up my face, cut out my eye! They were gonna r-ruin me and my Dad couldn't stop them and I was weak! I was weak, and I was scared, and—and I couldn't deal with it! I didn't know what to do! I closed my eyes and I saw them, I heard them, I couldn't think about anything else! They barely touched me, they didn't even get to do anything but I'm still afraid of them! I have powers now, real powers, and if I saw them, I'd probably **still be fucking terrified**!"

"So you betrayed your best friend? She could have helped you. Made you feel better." Lisa wasn't yelling anymore, but she was still right in my face, her expression unwavering. "Made you feel safe."

"I... I didn't..." I started to stammer, the words coming a little more easily, pouring out of me. "I didn't want to feel safe. Not like that, not like Taylor. I didn't want to feel the same. I wanted... I wanted..."

As I trailed off a little, Lisa gave me a verbal push. "What? What did you want, Emma?"

"I wanted to feel strong," I continued, my voice soft. "I wanted to be different. I was sick of being scared, of jumping at every little thing. I didn't want to feel weak anymore. Sophia, she talked about... about predators and prey, and how the strong are better than the weak. I wanted to be strong. I needed to feel that. I needed to be better. so I... " I closed my eyes briefly, but Lisa cleared her throat until I opened them and meet her stare again. "I made someone else weak instead. I hurt Taylor because it made me feel strong, and if I felt strong, I didn't have to be afraid anymore. I wanted to hurt her because... because if she was hurt, then I was stronger than she was, and if I was stronger, then I didn't have to be afraid anymore. I wasn't prey, she was prey. And every time it happened, every time I was b-better than she was, every time I proved it, I felt... I felt... good. It was like a drug without the actual high part. Just the urge, drive to do it again and again, to have more of it just to get past the withdrawal, the weakness. It wasn't _that_ bad at first. But the more I did it, the more I hurt her, the better it felt."

The words hung in the air between us for a few seconds before Lisa leaned back. She lifted a finger, tapping it against my shoulder. "You wanna be strong? Figure out what you really want, Emma. You want to survive in this life, in this world? Open your eyes. Stop being so focused on one goal and look at the bigger picture. Because we're not your tools for redemption. We're our own people, with _**our**_ own choices. You have tunnel vision, Emma. Even joining us was because you were focused on one thing: getting Taylor Hebert's house back. You want to be our leader, a _good_ leader? Open your eyes. You're not just missing the forest for the trees, you're trying to bore a hole into that single tree and live inside of it. There is a forest all around it that you have to notice, pay attention to, and acknowledge or you are going to crash and burn, and probably take the rest of us down with you. You want to change? Really change? Then do it. Be better than you were. But don't lie to yourself and make all these excuses about why you did what you did. You can have a billion reasons, but just listing all the reasons you suck isn't **helpful.** Hating yourself, _loathing yourself_ like that isn't productive, Emma. It doesn't accomplish a damn thing. That kind of self-hatred isn't going to help anyone. Fixing what was wrong is."

Biting my lip, I looked away. My emotions were turning over in my stomach. "I... I just want to help Madison and her family. I want to help my friend. They're in danger."

"I know. And we will. That's the call you made and we'll follow it. Some of us even understand it." Lisa's voice was quiet. "But you need to think about this. Think about all of it, about why you're here, about why you want to be a part of this. Figure out who you are. Or the boss is going to ruin you."

Both of us were silent then, before a noise at the door made us turn. Rachel stepped through. Her gaze moved from Lisa to me and back again before she grunted, "You two kiss or something?"

Unlike if it had come from either of the other two, from Rachel it was a legitimate question. Hell, she seemed bored by the very prospect, or maybe a little annoyed. Still, Lisa and I both sprang away from each other. "Nope!" I blurted, my voice a little higher than usual. "Just-" I coughed. "Just talking." Glancing to Lisa, I inclined my head. "Thanks," I said quietly. "I'll think about it. I promise."

She gave a slight nod before looking at the other girl. "Dogs ready?"

In response, Rachel gave a low whistle. Immediately, here three main dogs crowded up close to the doorway. "Phoebe and Bentley aren't going," she stated flatly, leaving no room for disagreement. "They're not ready to be around more worthless dumbass humans."

"Uh, are you referring to the Merchants or their hostages?" I asked with a raised hand.

She shrugged. "There's a difference?"

Before I could come up with a response to that, Alec and Tyler slipped in past the dogs. The Korean girl's head turned curiously at the sight of Lisa. "No costume yet? Look, we all know sliced bread wishes it was ever as cool as I am. And I do my best to spread that awesome everywhere I go. But even **I'm** not good enough to keep _everyone's_ eyes on me the whole time. You're gonna need a mask, babe."

Coughing, Lisa glanced to me before starting out of the room. "Yeah, I'll go change. When the boss's new recruit gets here, we can talk about where the Merchants are hiding."

I started to speak again while she was on the way out. "How long do we have before he- "In mid-sentence, there was a sudden, _very_ distracting moan of pleasure that sounded like it was straight from a porno. It echoed throughout the room.

As the orgasmic noise faded, Alec spoke conversationally toward Tyler. "Okay, you were right, the one from _Alleyway Cape Nights_ lingers better with that little gasp at the end. It's a nice punctuation. This one trills up too much."

"Told you," the girl replied. "If there's one thing I know, it's which orgasms make the best doorbells." She paused, tilting her head before continuing sagely. "Mine is a specialized bit of expertise."

For a moment, I thought about telling them to change it. But in the end, I figured it was better to pick my battles better. Instead, I looked at Lisa. "Too late, time to meet the new guy."

She hesitated, wincing as that porno moan came back once more. "Yup. I'll uhh, change after the introductions. No point in playing secret identity girl when he's part of the team." She left unsaid the part about making sure Rachel wasn't going to sic her dogs on the poor guy first.

The five of us moved into the crescent-shaped main entry room. Lisa started for the door, but I beat her there. Glancing to the others, I let out a breath before opening it.

A boy either my age or just a little younger stood there. He carried a heavy dufflebag over one shoulder, with what was obviously costume parts stored inside it. He looked uncertain. "You're the... umm, the Undersiders?" He asked hesitantly.

"The boss sent you?" I tried to hide the fact that I didn't have a clue who the boss actually was, extending a hand to the boy while ignoring Bitch's low growl of annoyance.

His head bobbed up and down while he accepted my hand. "Oh, yeah. He said you needed help, so I umm, I'm here." Shifting awkwardly, he released my hand. "I don't really know how to do this, but I uhh, I guess I'm your new teammate.

"My name's Theo. Theo Anders."

 **9-08 – Madison**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

It had come down to this. Three separate teams had shown up to stop Kaiser, and in the end, only Iron Rain, Brandish, and me were following that son of a bitch into that barn. Which, to be fair, was sort of like saying that he was being chased by Superman, Batman, and, well, me. If the first two didn't have him pissing himself yet, I kind of doubted that my yipping at his heels was worrying him much.

Just as Brandish and I reached the barn entrance, the woman at my side abruptly turned and caught me around the waist. She continued her motion, spinning while yanking me down and out of the way as a metal spear shot straight out through the opening. A second earlier, or if Mrs. Dallon had reflexes that were a hair slower, and both of us would have been impaled on it before we even made it inside.

"Go," Brandish urged while giving me a shove away from the door. At first I thought she was trying to make me leave, but the woman pointed while explaining in a quiet, yet terse voice. "Go around the back. Come in the other side, see if you can save Laserdream while I keep him busy. Hurry."

"Iron Rain is there too," I reminded her. "She's on our side. You two can work together to stop him, but only if you treat her like an ally." Seeing the way her face twisted, I added, "For Laserdream."

She didn't exactly agree, but she didn't argue either. Instead, the woman just gestured with a nod of her head for me to go. "Hurry," she repeated before turning back to the door. A glowing energy sword appeared in one hand before she slipped through the entrance to join the sounds of fighting within.

Giving the farm-turned-battlefield one last look while running to the other end of the barn, I flinched inwardly at the sight of the brutality. This wasn't a video game. The bodies that had fallen after being hit hard enough didn't magically vanish. They stayed there. Some moaned with pain, or called for help with pleading voices. Others... didn't. Those were the worst. At least the ones that were crying were obviously alive. The figures that weren't moving, those were the ones that really scared me.

Mockshow, the younger girl from Faultline's Crew that had been controlling the transformed and animated tractor before she had been struck by the Nazi counter-attack was on her feet. She was staggering almost drunkenly toward the fallen figure of Gregor while holding one arm against the obvious wound in her side. Two more steps and the girl collapsed to her knees beside the big man. Her hand, the one that wasn't occupied holding her own wound, clutched at the fallen figure.

He moved. It was just a twitch at first, but Gregor sat up, catching the girl before she could fall over the rest of the way. He tugged her arm away from the wound in her side before spraying something onto it that seemed to harden instantly to function as some kind of temporary bandage.

Good. Good, things weren't as bad as I'd- my feet hit a motionless lump, and I went flailing to the ground with a yelp. I rolled as I hit, lifting my leg so that I could kick out at whatever had tripped me.

Fog. I'd wondered where he'd gone to earlier, and now I had an answer. His unmoving body lay on the ground beside the barn, discarded like so much trash. I had only ever seen the man as creepy at the very best. Mostly I'd seen him as a wannabe Nazi piece of shit who had never truly changed. Now? Now there was no question as to his fate. The man was dead. A metal spike like an oversized tent peg had been driven down into his back and through the man's heart, literally staking him to the ground.

Fog. I didn't really care about him. He wasn't a friend. He barely qualified as 'not an enemy', even after spending time with the Faithful. But now... now he was dead. There would be no _chance_ to get to know him now. He was gone, forever, and nothing could bring him back. People didn't come back from dead.

My eyes moved back up, seeking out the happy scene of Gregor and Mockshow surviving their wounds. I found them crouched over a two other figures, one of whom's orange skin was unmistakable. Newter. A second later, I recognized the gas mask that the other wore. Spitfire.

Unlike Mockshow and Gregor, neither of these two were moving. They both lay still and silent, Newter half-draped across the girl's form as though he had been trying to shield her from the incoming lasers. They were completely motionless, their bodies lying still even after Mockshow first shoved, then kicked them. She tried again, but Gregor yanked her away, hauling the girl off the ground. Her awful scream reached my ears a second later, sounding distant and hollow as she shouted first Newter's name, then the name 'Emily' to no avail. Nothing happened. There was no response. Both of them were gone.

Bile rose up in my throat while I forced myself to my feet. No, no, no. This was all wrong. It was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to go like this! My frantic eyes moved, looking desperately for Panacea.

I found her. The girl was standing in spite of the handful of laser's she'd taken, testament to the strength of her brute-formula. She was crouched over two other familiar figures, Lightstar and Fleur, forcing vials of healing liquid into their mouths.

Fleur began to move a moment later. Lightstar didn't. Lightstar would never move again.

This time, I really did throw up in my mouth a little, almost as horrified as I was frightened. Lightstar, Newter, Spitfire, and Fog. All dead in the blink of an eye. All of them just... gone.

And this was only the start. More were going to die, might already _be_ dead. Laserdream might still die, if we didn't stop Kaiser. Everything bad that I was seeing right now might be a thousand times worse.

With that thought, I forced myself to turn away from all of the people out there. They were in trouble. Everywhere I looked, people were injured or still fighting. The battle was still going strong, but I had to abandon them. I had to ignore the urge to rush out and help, to find Panacea and get her healing the people who needed it the worst. As awful as it was, as horrible as it made me feel, I had to turn away from it and continue running around the back of the barn. Because as much as they needed help, we had to _**end**_ this even more. Or this, everything we'd done to get to this point, was for nothing.

The sound of clashing swords and shouts from within grew louder as I reached the back end of the barn. Taking a breath, I moved through the wall, letting my field erase it while stepping into the barn.

I was greeted by the sound of Brandish screaming curses. Head snapping up, I stared at the sight of the woman throwing herself at Kaiser. The Nazi leader was backing up rapidly, some kind of heavy tinkertech sword in his hand flicking back and forth to catch Brandish's wildly swinging energy blades. She was completely out of control, attacking the man with utterly staggering fury. There was no grace, no thought, no rhythm or care to her attacks. It was simply anger personified, a series of savage blows that came one after another, so fast in just those couple of seconds as I stared that they were all-but impossible to follow. Yet somehow, Kaiser didn't just follow the attacks, he blocked all of them.

Iron Rain was on the ground, rolling out of the way just as a spike of metal not too unlike the one that impaled Fog lanced up out of the floor where she had just been. An instant later, the spike dissolved into a bubble of silver-metallic liquid that floated into the air before rapidly flinging parts of itself off one after another at the Nazi son of a bitch. The blobs turned into darts as they were shot at him.

Just before Kaiser would have been struck by half a dozen metal pin-point darts, a short wall rose up at his side, catching the flung weapons against it. At the same time, he caught Brandish's wild sword thrust, turning it aside while calling out to Iron Rain. "Darts, dear sister? Are you sure you're trying?"

In answer, Iron Rain vaulted the wall that he had created. Her empty hand reached out, grasping the shards of metal that had obediently joined together before returning to her. Even as her hand closed around the semi-liquid shape, it was solidifying into a sword as she swung it at Kaiser's back.

He pivoted, catching the incoming sword while lashing out with a kick toward Brandish that caught the woman's wrist, knocking her own swing toward his briefly-exposed front off target. With the same motion, the man continued his turn so that his elbow crashed into Iron Rain's helmet, knocking her into a stumble that she quickly turned into a roll before coming back to her feet while pivoted to him.

"Still having trouble using your power on metal that I'm actually touching, huh?" Kaiser's tone was thoroughly mocking. "Don't worry, sis, I'm sure you'll get it one of these days. Just try harder."

"Stupid piece of shit!" Brandish switched her two swords into a single scythe, faking a wide over-head swing before twisting the other way as she switched her weapon to a much smaller and quicker dagger that she thrust forward with. The man fell for the wild blow, taking the shorter blade in a glancing blow to the side. It was only a graze, but it still cut through his armor and drew a groan of pain from the man.

It wasn't enough. Both women tried to follow through, but Kaiser was still moving too fast. He avoided Iron Rain's quick series of sword-strikes, then caught hold of Brandish's arm. With a quick twist and tug, the woman's wrist was abruptly pointed in a completely wrong direction. Her cry of pain faded almost instantly into a bellow of rage as she forced her other hand to lash out, the short sword in her hand lengthening into a spear that caught Kaiser in his shoulder. The energy spear went right through his armor, nearly pinning him to the wall before he managed to twist free with a curse of his own.

Then I saw it. Her. The reason that Brandish was fighting with such blind anger, not even paying attention to her blows. Laserdream. The other girl was there... she was... she was...

What. The. Fuck.

My brain almost screeched to a halt. I stared at the poor, disheveled, dirty figure that had been bent over some kind of metal frame that held her in that awful position, trapped and incapable of doing anything more than wiggle a little bit. Her unwashed hair lay matted against her sweat and dirt-covered face, as much as I could see with the visor covering half of it. Worse, various bruises and spots of blood were also visible. The sight of all of it, particularly that last bit, made Brandish's rage understandable.

Without any kind of conscious decision, I was suddenly sprinting that way. It was all I could do not to blurt Crystal's name as I raced the length of the barn to the middle of the room where her trapped figure had been positioned near some weird, egg-shaped device about the size of a sedan that was covered by a series of lime-green and ugly yellow glass panels. Her hands were pointed toward the contraption.

Skidding to a stop as I reached the trapped girl, I reached out to touch her arm. My heart thudded wildly in my chest, worst case scenarios flying through my head as my fingers brushed her arm.

She flinched as I touched her, cringing briefly before her exhausted, pain-filled gaze lifted. The reaction made me wince. "A-are you... are you..." Words failed me. Thoughts failed me. I wanted to throw myself at the fucking piece of shit Nazi a few feet away and tear his eyes out with my own fingers I wanted to claw his skin down to the bone. The only thing that stopped me, the only thing that kept my feet rooted to the spot, was the fear that Crystal would think, in her state, that I had abandoned her.

When she spoke, her voice was fragile. Yet I heard the hope in it, weak though it was. "My... mom..."

"She's outside," I promised. "Your aunt's fighting Kaiser right over there. Let me get you out. Let me-"

"Down!" Crystal's voice rose sharply, and I obeyed without thought, dropping just as some kind of laser-blast shot through the air where my head had been a second earlier.

Spinning around, I found myself facing a masked Empire soldier carrying a high tech rifle. He let off another shot, which I just barely managed to throw myself away from. I still wasn't sure how my field would react to lasers exactly. It let light through just fine, so testing it right now was a bad idea.

"Don't you Nazi fucks have better things to do right now?" I demanded, ready to summon a weapon that would deal with this stupid piece of excrement so that I could finish freeing Laserdream. "Back off so I can get her out of that, or I swear to **Scion** I will make you regret every Sieg Heil you ever said."

"Her?" The Empire-clad goon retorted. "I don't give a rat's ass about that bitch." As he spoke, the gun moved a bit, his aim settling not on me, but on Crystal. But you're gonna get out of the way so I can get to that machine behind you, or we'll see if lasers work as good going _into_ her as they do coming out."

He said something else then. It was probably a threat, or maybe an insult. I didn't hear, because my mind was too busy reeling from the first thing he had said. Not his words, but his voice. I knew it. I knew that voice because I'd heard it every day of my life growing up, particularly that _tone._

Trevor. The Empire goon with the rifle was _my brother._ I'd known that he had joined the Nazis, but some part of me had consciously ignored that fact right up to this point. It hadn't seemed _real_ until now. And now? Now that I was facing him with his fancy rifle held right up to point at me? It still didn't seem real. It still seemed like a dream. An awful, ugly, horrible dream that I wanted to end right now.

"Tre-" I started to blurt his name unthinkingly, shock overwhelming my common sense. In mid-shout, however, I was interrupted as someone crashed into me. The heavy blow took me to the floor, and I rolled over a bit before finding myself briefly tangled up with Brandish. The woman yanked me around, and I spotted the metal spike sticking out of the floor a few yards away where I had been standing a second before she had tackled me out of the way. Mrs. Dallon had abandoned her blind-frenzied assault against Kaiser in order to save my life.

"Good!" The man himself called, still locked in a fight with his sister. Neither could use their powers that effectively against the other. She could throw metal at him, but his armor protected him from most of what she could do, and she couldn't actually affect any of the metal that was touching him. On the other hand, he could throw spikes and such at her, but she was easily able to take control of anything that entered the radius of her power as long as it _wasn't_ right next to his body. As a result, the two of them were mostly forced to rely on their fencing prowess, and in that they were evenly matched.

After calling out that single word of approval, Kaiser erected a quick wall, blocking himself from Iron Rain's sight for the second that it took her to get closer and make the wall tear itself down with a wave of her hand. He used that second to back up, putting himself closer to where we were while ordering the Empire soldier, my brother. "Shoot the girl. See how they like losing what they came for."

Brandish went back to her feet, but seemed torn between throwing herself at my brother or at Kaiser.

Before any of us could react any further than that, Trevor actually replied, "See, you're making two assumptions there. First, you're assuming that I would make myself the number one target of _her,_ " he pointed toward Brandish, "and her whole club of super friends. No fucking thank you."

Kaiser twisted away from Iron Rain's flurry of attacks, barely evading by backing up rapidly. "You are a soldier of the Empire Eighty-Eight!" His voice rose with anger. "And you will do as you're told!"

"Yeah, that's your second mistake," Trevor informed him. "You're assuming that I'm on your side."

My heart leapt at that. What? Trevor wasn't on Kaiser's side? But why had he joined the Nazis then? What was the point of that? What the hell was going on?

In that frozen second where **everyone** was trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, Trevor leapt past me, landing next to the machine that Laserdream had been forced to charge up, the weapon that Kaiser had been so obsessed with building. He turned then, hand producing a small device that he'd plucked from his pocket. It looked like a remote of some kind. He held it in one hand while facing the rest of the room. "I'm supposed to tell you... Coil says thanks for doing all the work."

A bellow of rage erupted from Kaiser, and he flung his sister out of the way before throwing himself at the spot where my brother was. Unfortunately for him, it was already too late. Trevor slammed that device he was holding against the side of the bomb, and both he and the machine vanished into thin air.

" **No**!" Kaiser's fury was almost a physical thing, his shout reverberating through the room. "No! I made it! The weapon was my creation, my idea, my solution!"

"Max!" Iron Rain was back on her feet from where she had been tossed, cracking her neck to the side while holding her sword up. "This ends now, Max. It's over. You lost." She looked to me, then to Brandish briefly before continuing. "Now the person that owes you the most pain right this second is going to end you."

"Is that right?" Kaiser was clearly so furious he could barely spit the words. "I would love to see you try it right now, _dear sister._ "

Brandish interrupted, laser sword appearing in her hand as she leapt that way with a blurted, "Piece of shit!"

At the same time, Iron Rain gave her sword a casual toss. It flew through the air not at Kaiser, but toward me. I raised my field, let the sword be absorbed into it, then shot it back out again.

Kaiser easily dodged both weapons. Stepping forward quickly to avoid Brandish's wild attack, he then ducked under the sword that I shot in his direction.

"Now that is truly pitiful," the man snarled. "If that's the best that 'the person who owes me the most pain' can do, no wonder you keep fucking losing."

"That's the thing, Max." Iron Ran spat the words back at him without moving from her spot. "I never said that I was referring to myself."

I saw the calculations, the thoughts running through the man's eyes for a half-second before he spun around. He was already raising his arm defensively.

Too late.

The person who owed him the most pain in that very second was already standing behind him. Weak, weary, but driven by some hidden reserve of willpower and strength, Laserdream had risen from her bonds the second that Brandish's carefully aimed blow had deliberately missed Kaiser in order to cut her free. The sword that I had deliberately shot past the man so that it would reach the other girl was held tightly in both of her hands.

Tired, pale, bloody, but not broken, Laserdream met the Nazi leader's surprised gaze just long enough to speak the first of two words. "Fuck," she began before stabbing upward and out with Iron Rain's sword. The blade went right into Kaiser's face, piercing his helmet through the eye hole before sinking all the way to the back of his head. "... you," she finished as his body slowly collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Kaiser... was dead.

 **9-09 – Sophia**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

"So basically what you're saying is that we have absolutely no idea who's in there, how many there are, what they want, how they got in, or how many of the good guys are still standing." Clockblocker finished his depressing-as-shit summary with a disbelieving, "Do we know **anything** useful at all?"

Our 'team' (or what they optimistically called a team anyway) was standing on the end of the visitor's parking lot behind the detention center. Aegis had just finished putting in one last futile call for information. What he ended up with had been... well, less than helpful. It wasn't exactly surprising, considering the dumbasses that he was relying on doing their fucking jobs, but it was still annoying. Because the very instant that anything didn't go perfect (and it never did go perfect by the standards of the pencil pushing retards that liked to armchair quarterback our god damn jobs), they'd blame us. Not the situation or the real bad guys or their ridiculous, contrived rules that constantly tied our hands. Us.

"Sure," Chronicler piped up from nearby. "We know something useful." Lifting his hand, he pointed toward the kiddie prison in the distance before dramatically intoning, "The bad guys are in there."

"Thanks," Aegis's voice as he replied was so dry it almost physically cut the air. "That's super-helpful."

As far away from me as it was possible to get while still remaining a part of the group, Grue (and I still refused to think of him as anything else, because fuck that) spoke up. "Weren't we supposed to have PRT support?" He gestured around the otherwise unoccupied lot. "We wait for them?"

"Waiting's better than running in half-cocked with no information so we get ourselves fucked up or killed," I retorted without really thinking about it, my eyes focused on the prison in the distance. When there was no response other than silence for a few seconds, I slowly turned my head to find all of their eyes on me. The entire Wards team was staring at me in what looked like stunned silence. "What? What did I say?" I couldn't keep the defensive tone out of my voice. They were really staring.

Aegis stepped back, looking slightly toward Gallant. The other boy gave what looked like a subtle nod back to him before speaking up. "Uh, So—Stalker, could you maybe do us all a favor just to settle everyone's nerves and run through the Master/Stranger protocols with us?" He made it sound like an invitation, as if they weren't accusing me of being a fraud someone's puppet. Which was probably the reason that Aegis had gotten him to ask rather than do it himself. Cowards.

"Oh my fucking..." I groaned, rolling my eyes. "Fuck, whatever. Go for it. The damn passwords are-"

"In order, Stalker," Aegis took over. "We do this in order. How many colors does a cat have?"

Feeling absolutely ridiculous to be participating in this dumb ritual, I reluctantly replied, "September."

They exchanged glances, then looked back to me. Aegis nodded and continued. "Three minus one is?"

"Blue," I yawned to pointedly show how little I cared about this stupid game before remembering that the mask meant they couldn't see it. So I yawned louder just to make my point. "Are we done? It's me."

"Last one," He insisted. "The seven dwarfs are Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, and?"

God I felt like an idiot. "Jon Pertwee. There, are we done now? Please? It's me, and we're fucking wasting time. Just because I don't want to go running right in like idiots doesn't mean someone's controlling or replacing me, god damn it. I'm not **that** fucking trigger happy." The questions were designed to appear either easy to guess, or completely random nonsense phrases. We had to memorize new ones every once in awhile, more often when there was any reason to think that a Stranger or Master was active. Obviously, the people coming up with the tests were the biggest dorks in the world.

"She said please," Clockblocker replied, his voice doubtful. "I think we should run through it again."

Before I could strangle the little shit, Gallant cleared his throat. "I told you guys, she's fine. It's her. You wanted proof, there you go. We're good here, so let's focus on the mission. Where **is** our PRT escort?"

Making a motion to show that he was listening to something on his communicator, Aegis turned away with his hand up for us to wait. He made a few noises of understanding, then agreed before turning back. "They've been held up by something else, so we go in without them and report the situation."

"In other words," I put in as harshly as I could manage, "we do their fucking job for them." On top of that, after all the shit they'd given me about wanting to wait for help, the universe had bent over backwards to make me wrong again. We were going into the situation completely unprepared anyway.

Apparently agreeing, Clockblocker put in, "Guess you should've said that they'll never send anyone to help us and that we should just kick the doors down and charge right inside. Then they would've sent the Triumvirate. At least that way you could've been wrong in a useful direction."

Aegis interrupted before I could say anything in respond to that. "The point is, we're going in to look around. We stay together, we report the situation, we solve it if we can. Got it?" When everyone nodded, he took a breath before starting to walk that way. "Keep your eyes open and pay attention to everything. We find out what's going on in there, and what kind of capes we're dealing with. Until we know who they are and what they can do, don't take _anything_ for granted. Don't trust anyone in there."

No one bothered to point out to the poor guy that none of us actually trusted everyone out _here_ either. Instead, we followed after Aegis as he strode to the gate. It was standing open, a green hummer parked directly in its path so that it couldn't close. The nearby security guard shack was empty.

One by one, we slipped through the open space between the gate and the vehicle. In the distance, the main building of the detention facility loomed. It looked empty, dark, and actually rather foreboding.

I wondered if the place I would've ended up in if it hadn't been for Emma's father looked like this.

The unwanted, surprising thought made me stop suddenly. Where the hell had **that** come from? Looking at this prison where the juvenile delinquent shits ended up shouldn't make me think about my own situation. They were totally different. _We_ were totally different. The shits that belonged here couldn't hack it in the real world. They were losers that acted out for attention, or to get money or score drugs or whatever. I wasn't like that. I wasn't like them. I was a hero. Fuck, I risked my life all the time to save other people from the losers who did belong in here, or in the adult prison. Sure, I'd maybe gone overboard a little bit. I let myself get out of control now and then. But it wasn't the same thing.

"Stalker, Veil, you guys okay?" Gallant was looking at each of us, the whole team waiting just inside the gate. Apparently we'd both stopped short at the sight of the prison. Not that Grue's reason for stopping was all that surprising. Maybe he was hoping he could pick out a bed while we were here for the inevitable time that he fucked this whole redemption thing up and got sent away.

"Fine, I'm fine," the boy finally answered, shaking his head as though clearing it. "Just kind of hoping my sister doesn't end up here. She's been dealing with some things. It's rough."

"Gee," I couldn't help interjecting, "I wonder who her role model is."

"That's enough, Stalker," Aegis ordered, his voice making it clear that he meant it.

I shrugged absently, my attention on the building. "Yeah fine, I'm sorry. That was over the line."

Sounding annoyed, Aegis started, "Look, I said..." He trailed off after that, falling completely silent.

Looking left, then right, I found the whole team staring at me **again.** "Okay, just how fucking callous do you people think I-" Before I could say anything else, the sound of an explosion interrupted.

As a group, we hit the ground, reflexively diving in opposite directions. I used my power while throwing myself away from the sound, raising my head to scan for the source of it.

There. A large portion of one of the walls had been blown outward, and there were figures stepping out.

"East wall!" I called to the others as soon as I was solid enough to activate my comm. Landing on one knee, I pushed myself up into a sprint that way. "Three figures, no four. They're-" Seeing something shooting my direction, I instantly shifted into my shadow state just in time for a metal harpoon to shoot through me. It tingled, which was far better than what it would have done if I'd stayed solid. "-armed!"

Ahead of me, the four figures had been joined by three more. Only one was in costume, a taller, male figure who happened to be the one holding the harpoon gun. His outfit consisted of what looked like a super-patriotic red, white, and blue version of a SWAT uniform, with 'Sui Juris' printed along the pocket where 'Police' should have been. Besides the harpoon gun (itself obviously heavily modified), the man was also carrying some kind of heavy riot shield over his other arm. When he held it up, I saw the words Auribus Teneo Lupum written across it in bright, bold letters. Too bad I had no idea what either of those phrases meant, though my first guess was that they looked Latin.

"Spread out," Aegis ordered through the com. "Drop the one with the gun and contain the others." Suiting word to order, he flew straight down before the man could fire again. Aegis came in hard, kicking out at the guy's chest. Unfortunately, his foot hit that shield, and nothing seemed to happen. The force of his kick just... vanished somehow, absorbed into the shield or something.

For a second, Aegis just hovered there, staring down at the shield that his foot was pressed against. Then SWAT-Patriot, or whatever he called himself, announced in what I could only describe as an incredibly _punchable_ voice. "We do not recognize nor respect the authority of the corporation posing as the United States government, or any of its agents. Under the Constitution of the true United States, you have no right to detain me, or my people. We are free to go." With that, the man gave his shield some kind of shove. The kinetic force that the shield had absorbed was shoved back out again, and Aegis went flying off to hit the wall hard. He followed that up by aiming the harpoon gun toward the boy in the rust-colored costume and shot off another of those long metal spears. Before it had crossed even half the distance, however, the harpoon twisted in the suddenly distorted air, flying off to hit the nearby the ground nearby. Vista's work. Give the girl another few seconds and she'd have the guy shooting himself instead of the dirt.

I didn't plan on waiting that long. Snapping both of my crossbows up, I fired off a tranquilizer bolt from the one in my right hand before leaping up, using a quick shadow-shift to carry myself higher than I should have been able to go before firing off the bolt from my left crossbow. An instant later, the weird energy-fog that meant Chronicler was using his power surrounded me, and I caught a glimpse of my faint duplicate pointing her crossbows that way before shooting off bolts as well.

All four bolts shot toward the SWAT-Patriot, dead on target. He blocked the first with his shield, but I'd purposefully leapt before firing the other one so that it catch him out of position. Chronicler had done the same. Each of the subsequent three bolts were on a direct course for the costumed jail breaker.

Or they were, until they were abruptly dragged off course. Each of the three bolts suddenly shot sideways toward one of the figures that had emerged from the detention center. The boy, who looked like he couldn't be older than twelve as he stood there in his detention center sweatsuit, raised his hand to pluck my dart out of the air with a curious tilt to his head. The two bolts that Chronicler's version of me had made vanished as their time ran out, but mine stayed in his fingers. The boy turned the bolt over, considered it for a second, then tossed it toward one of his companions. This one, a Hispanic girl, caught the bolt and held it up for us to see. Then she laughed as the bolt melted into a handful of sand.

"They're all capes!" Gallant called out, already shooting off a blast of his power toward the boy who had caught my bolt. It struck the boy, who suddenly started giggling so much he couldn't breathe. Rather than fight, the boy collapsed to the ground, holding his sides as he laughed uproariously.

Chronicler copied Gallant to do the same to the girl who had turned the bolt to sand, but another of the teenagers, a large, heavyset girl who looked like she was about my age, leapt into the path of the bolt. As she did, her body seemed to meld with the ground, turning into dirt with grass-covered patches. The emotion-manipulating blast struck, but didn't seem to do anything.

From the edge of the roof where my leap had brought me, I stared. This didn't make any sense. How were they all capes? There was no way that parahuman criminals would have been kept here with the general population, and **all** of them couldn't have triggered at the same time so recently that no one knew about it. So what the hell was going on?

Below me, it looked like Clockblocker had gone into some kind of spasm. The guy was flailing, swiping out with his hands in every direction seemingly at random. I had a second to wonder what the fuck he was doing, before my eyes spotted the energy-fog curling up around him. Then a second Clockblocker, one of Chronicler's duplicates, appeared in front of the group of delinquents.

And in the next instant, the area was engulfed with Grue's darkness. Standing where I was, I could see the 'former' Undersider himself, standing next to Chronicler. He was talking, gesturing here and there.

Pointing, I realized. He could see through his darkness, and he was telling Chronicler where to send the duplicate of the flailing Clockblocker so that it had the best chance of hitting people with his copied power. All three of them were working together.

When the fuck had they planned _this?_

A bellow caught my attention, as the weird patriot guy flung himself backwards out of the darkness. I lined up a shot, but before I could take it, he held that shield up. It began to glow, and Grue's darkness was... sucked inside of it? The fuck?

The loss of the darkness revealed that three of the seven figures within were frozen, including the one that had been hit by Gallant's laughter blast.

"You and your corporate masters have no power over our right to live our lives unmolested!" The man bellowed, his voice obviously enhanced by something in his helmet. "We are free! We aren't part of your slave race. We do not recognize your authority."

Dropping from the roof to land behind the asshole, I asked, "Do you recognize my fist?" With that, I lashed out with a punch that nailed the guy in his smug (I assumed it was smug, they usually are) face when he turned toward me. "Here, lemme hit you a few more times just so you can commit it to memory."

He tried to do something with that shield of his, but I went into shadow-form and leapt through him. Once I was behind him once more, I spun, lifting my crossbow so I could put the asshole down with a tranquilizer.

He spun around impossibly fast, snatching my bolt in mid-air before snapping it with two fingers. Then his foot came up and around in a kick that hit me like a truck. The next thing I knew, I was on my back, groaning. "Son of a... bitch."

"The time of the False Government is at an end," the man announced. "I am Aequitas, and you have been warned."

"Yeah?" I retorted. "Well you know what you can do with-"

I was talking to a wall. A brightly colored wall with crayon drawings all over it. "What the the fu-"

A foot kicked me in mid-sentence, and I turned around quickly to find myself standing with the rest of the Wards. Gallant was the one that had kicked me, and he made a jerking motion with his head until I turned my attention to the rest of the room. Immediately, I wished I hadn't. Somehow, we had been transported into one of the worst places on the planet that I could even think of. A school classroom. First grade, from the look of things.

Fuck, a teleporter. One of those stupid fucking detention center escapee **punks** had a teleportation power. They couldn't port away without their time-frozen friends, so they had teleported _us_ away from _them_ instead.

For another second, the collection of snot-nosed little kids continued to stand there in shocked silence after our unexpected arrival. There were at least two dozen of the kids, along with their equally surprised teacher.

Then the squeals of delight began, and the kids rushed forward, screaming in joy as they began to hug us, clinging, babbling, questioning, and just all-around making as much noise as possible.

"We're losing time!" I snapped while trying to step over one of the kids that had attached itself to my leg. "They're getting away!"

"I know this school," Gallant replied, hoisting a couple of the diminutive brats off the floor as they laughed happily. "We're on the wrong side of town. They'll be long gone by the time we get there." He took a step toward the confused teachers, starting to explain the situation and calm them down.

"I'll call it in," Aegis sighed, clearly not looking forward to the conversation.

While he was doing that, I turned away, intent on escaping this room. I managed to make it through the crowd of kids (of course they were more interested in my 'fun' teammates, and into the hall. Before I could get any further than that, however, my eyes spotted something going on down the hall.

"Stop it!" A girl who looked like she was about a second grader protested. "That's my daddy's! Stop!"

Another girl, bigger, maybe older, definitely stronger, was holding a computer pad. "Oooh, your daddy's? I bet it's not really his. I bet he stole it!"

"He did not!" The first girl shook her head. "Give it back! It's my Daddy's and he said I had to be careful!"

With a wicked smirk, the second girl tucked the computer pad under her arm. "Mine now. You don 't deserve it anyway. Your daddy's a thief, and you'll be a thief too. Stupid trailer trash. Dumb little-"

"Stop it!" I caught the girl by her arm, yanking her away from the one she was tormenting. With my other hand, I snatched the computer pad away from her. "Leave her alone!"

"Oww!" The little girl bully landed on her backside in the hall, holding her arm where I had grabbed her. Tears welled up in her eyes. "Y-you hurt me..."

"I didn't... that's not what I... I just wanted you to leave Taylor alone," I found myself stammering.

Behind me, the girl whose computer had been stolen whispered, "But my name's not Taylor."

For another handful of seconds, I stood there, staring first at the girl on the floor, then at the one who was still standing there. Not-Taylor.

Then I shoved the computer back into her hands, turned, and ran.

And I didn't stop running for a long time.

 **9-10 – Emma**

 _ **Monday, April 25th, 2011**_

"Ironclad?" The voice of Alec in my ear suggested some time later. It was far from the first suggestion.

"That's taken... several times," Tyler's voice replied. "Just like Silversmith, Solder, Anvil, and Forge. None of them really fit either. You don't want the poor guy to be stuck with a name that doesn't fit."

From his spot beside me, both of us sitting on the edge of a hill that overlooked a mostly empty field about a few miles outside of the city, Theo glanced my way. His voice was an uncertain whisper, "Are you sure we can do this?"

I returned his look, taking in the boy's costume once again. There wasn't a lot to it, since most of the 'costume' consisted of a short-sleeved silver shirt, a set of gloves, and a pair of black cargo pants. The only thing that actually made it look like a costume was the converted motorcycle helmet he wore. That part reminded me of Grue, save for the color scheme and the fact that the visor had dim blue lights along the edges that made it glow. He could dial the intensity of the lights up or down with a control switch on his gloves as well as switch their direction so they were aimed more inside the helmet or more outside. That way, he could make the top half of his face easier or harder to make out.

I'd asked what was up with the elaborate helmet and gloves in contrast to the rest of his completely ordinary outfit, and Theo had said that they were a gift from someone in his family before he'd had his powers. I wasn't sure **why** he'd had something like that before he was even a cape, but hadn't asked.

At the moment, the lights were illuminating the inside of the helmet so that I could see his pensive expression. Well, the lower half of his face was obscured by the rest of the helmet, but just his eyes were enough for me to read. The boy was nervous. I wasn't sure how long he'd had his power, but it couldn't have been _that_ long. I wondered, briefly, how the boss had found him so soon.

Unfortunately, Theo himself wasn't going to be much help on that front. According to him, he had no idea who this boss was either. They had worked through some kind of go-between that had found him while he was practicing with power of his, and offered the job. That wasn't all there was to the story, even Theo said so, but the fact was that we hadn't had time to sit and listen to all of it. I'd heard enough to find out what his power was so that we could work him into the plan to save the hostages from the Merchants, and then we had headed out. Later we would talk more with Theo and find out just how much he **really** knew about this mysterious boss that couldn't even talk to us in person.

Finally, I answered his question, just as the boy began to make a noise as if he was going to repeat the question. "Am I sure? No. But if your power works the way you say it does, I think we stand a pretty good chance of pulling it off." After a second, I added, "Does saving a bunch of hostages bother you?"

His head shook quickly at that, and I saw the flinch in his eyes before he turned to look away. "No," he replied in that quiet, demure voice. "I don't mind. It's better than I thought we were going to do."

Huh. So clearly he wasn't one of those gung ho cape villains that wanted to make a big name for themselves right away. What was his deal then? Why had he joined up with us at all, unless he was being forced into it? Wait, was that it? Was this boss of Lisa's actually making Theo do this? I hadn't really gotten that impression from the short conversation we'd had, but then, we hadn't said much.

I'd just promised myself that I would get the boy away from the others and press him on why he was here at all when Alec spoke up again with another suggestion for Theo's codename. "Buns Of Steel?"

"Damn it, I was gonna say that one." Tyler complained. The two of them were on the opposite hill, hidden behind some bushes. "Wait, I know. I've got it. How about Ferrous Bueller. Get it? Ferrous?"

Bitch, who was with her dogs somewhere around the back of the same hill that Nimue and Regent were perched on, hidden by the foliage, spoke up. "Dumb name."

"No, see, it's a totally sweet reference," Tyler started to explain. "Instead of Ferrous like metal, think-"

"Don't give a shit," Rachel interrupted. "It's just a dumb name. Talking doesn't make it less dumb."

Turning toward Theo, I spoke conversationally. "I'm amazed at how well Rachel's taking you joining."

That earned me a double take as the boy hissed in disbelief, "This is her taking something _well_?"

"Are you kidding?" I replied with a shrug. "I don't think I've ever seen her in this good of a mood aside from playing with her dogs. Throwing something new like you at her right in the middle of a mission? I'm half-tempted to run some kind of Master-Stranger test just to make sure it's really her."

He was still staring at me when Tattletale cut in from her own position about a quarter mile away, closer to the city. "How about Alloy?"

"Alloy?" Theo echoed, his voice only audible to me thanks to being right next to him. He shifted, an embarrassed look crossing what I could see of his face after I pointed that out before activating the extra comm that we'd given him. This time, his voice came through the comm. "Alloy?"

"Sure," Tattletale's voice was even. She was speaking in that that 'I know all of the things' tone again. "You know, as in a substance made out of more than one metal, a mixture of them. Or something that reduces quality or... purity. Mix of things like, say, good and evil. Alloy."

There was a moment of silence from the boy next to me before he answered softly, "Okay."

I'd just opened my mouth to ask what that had been about when Tattletale spoke again. This time, she wasn't participating in the naming ceremony. "Incoming. Should reach you in about two minutes."

"Are we clear?" I asked immediately. We'd stayed as much under cover as possible just in case of any Merchant scouts. Thus far, we hadn't seen a single thing, but I wanted to make sure.

"Checking," Tattletale's voice was quiet as she focused. Somewhere out there, the other girl was scanning the area all around Theo-err Alloy and me with that sniper rifle, looking for anyone out of place. After a few seconds of that, she added, "Nobody in sight. I'm pretty sure you're clear."

Nodding to Theo, I straightened up. Together, the two of us half jogged and half slid down the hill. As we went, I checked on the others. "Bitch, you ready? Are your dogs going to be okay with this part?"

"We're fine," the other girl's slightly annoyed response came back. She didn't like me bothering her when she was focused on keeping the pack in line. By now, they would all be enormous. And gigantic dogs didn't exactly go well with sitting still and waiting patiently. **Especially** in the middle of a big field. I couldn't imagine how hard it had been for Rachel to keep them from wandering off to explore. And yet, even watching the area that I knew they were in, I hadn't seen any sign of the giant dogs through the trees that lined that side of the field. She was just that good with them.

Reaching the base of the hill, Theo— **Alloy** and I ran straight to the middle of the field. We were just in time to hear the approach of our target, the reason the Merchants hadn't been caught yet, the way they had been keeping their prisoners hidden for so long. A train. Yeah, the Merchants had been running their prisoners back and forth on one of those cargo trains. Tattletale had hit on it when she noticed a letter from one of the lower ranked Merchants to Greaser, complaining about someone else getting special privileges 'just because her fuckstick brother runs the trainyard,' along with a page of hastily scrawled tinker tech notes from Squealer. We couldn't decipher what the notes meant exactly, but they were all about upgrading a train with hidden compartments to in order to run more drugs into town.

So yeah, that was how the Merchants had been getting their drugs in. Through a combination of a the foreman of the trainyard looking the other way, and tinker-built secret compartments. And now they had been using that very train to keep shuttling their hostages out of town and back again over and over again. I wondered how many times the train had made that trip without anyone paying attention to it.

Alloy and I were at the tracks by then. We could see the train in the distance, approaching steadily. I glanced toward the boy next to me, giving him one last chance to back down. "Sure you've got this?"

I could see the nervousness and uncertainty in his face, and took a moment to put a hand on his arm. "Hey, Th—Alloy, look at me. Look here, okay?" I waited until he focused in my direction before speaking again. This time, instead of _asking_ him, I _told_ him. "You've got this. Trust your power."

"Trust my power," he echoed my words before using the control on his gloves to turn the lights on his helmet outward, hiding his face once more. "G-got it." His voice caught just a little on the words, but he stood slightly straighter, positioning himself directly in the middle of the track to face the train.

Hoping I was right about him being able to handle it, I moved aside to prepare for my own part. Nimue and Regent would be descending to join Bitch with her dogs. They could have waited with her, but I had figured that leaving Rachel alone rather than make her wait with those two was better.

"All right, guys..." I spoke quietly through the comm while watching the incoming train. "Just like we talked about, wait for my signal. No one does anything until I tell you to go. I don't want them to know what's going on too soon." After another second, the train was almost on top of us. "Alloy, you're up!"

Theo reacted immediately, bending to touch the railway track. As he did so, his skin shifted instantly into the same hard steel that they were made out of, making him a hell of a lot stronger and tougher than he had been a second earlier. And then he grew. A lot. In the span of a couple seconds, Theo went from being an averaged sized (if slightly hefty) teenage boy, to standing a solid twenty feet tall. His clothes and helmet grew with him, which I might have been confused by if I hadn't seen Fenja and Menja's own costumes and weapons grow with them as well. Powers were just that weird sometimes.

The train hit him then, but Theo caught it with both hands. The impact knocked him backwards, but he held on and there was a horrifying screech of protesting metal as the train was forced to a relatively fast stop. I hoped that the passengers inside weren't too hurt. The hostages that was. Fuck the Merchants.

There was a shout from inside the train, followed by another from the engine. I heard two gunshots, neither of which did anything to the gigantic Alloy. Someone else screamed, and I heard something about Mush and Greaser. Good, the capes were coming. That was exactly what we wanted.

Doors all along the train slammed open, Merchants leaping free with their guns aimed directly for the giant metal figure that had brought their ride to a painful stop. There were about ten of them, most armed with rifles or shotguns. Some, I noticed happily, looked injured or dazed from the abrupt and utterly unexpected halt. Or, I supposed, they were just high.

Either way, they were all aiming at Theo when he simply disappeared into thin air, vanishing entirely.

"Looks like you guys are having some trouble playing with your train!" I called out to grab their attention then. I made myself adopt the cocky, self-assured tone I'd used in school for so long. "Don't worry, we'll take it off your hands. Along with everything else you've got."

Seeing the guns turning in my direction, I took a breath and held it, calling on my power. The world shifted into red, and everything froze. Then I sprinted forward while grabbing both stun guns off my belt where I'd stored them, gunslinger style. My run carried me straight to the nearest of the drugged out losers, and I saw how his blood-shot eyes were trying to focus on the spot where I'd been as he raised his shotgun to one shoulder, his finger tight against the trigger.

Shoving the stun gun in my left hand at the man, I unfroze time long enough to put the weapon close to his skin and push the button. The resulting shock drew a scream from the man. He fired his gun uselessly at the spot where I'd been before collapsing, twitching heavily.

Instantly, I froze time again and leapt to the next pair of thugs that were standing close to each other. Putting myself between them, I raised both stun guns, restarted time, and shocked both before they could react at all.

Again, I froze time. The repeated uses of my power in rapid succession without a break would wear on me soon, but I forced myself to keep going. I jumped from thug to thug, appearing just long enough to taze them before freezing time again. The last few had already finally started to react before I was done. But it was too late. What to me had taken about a minute was only a handful of seconds to them.

A handful of seconds, and all ten of the gun-toting Merchant thugs were on the ground, twitching and whining about how much of a cunt I was. I gave the ones that still seemed too mobile another shock.

My head was pounding, and I knew my power needed a break. That had been pushing it.

"Stupid fucking cocksucker!" The shout reminded me that a break was the last thing my _health_ needed, and I spun to see the two remaining Merchant capes, Mush and Greaser. They had more of the non-powered Merchants with them, at least as many as the ones I'd already taken care of.

As soon as I saw them, I activated the comm. "Go, go!"

Mush was already forming a body out of the rocks and other debris lying around, his small pink goblin like form rapidly becoming encased within a much larger and stronger version.

Greaser, meanwhile, was already coming straight for me, flanked by all three of her 'companions.' Basically, Greaser's power allowed her to manifest a trio of bodies that looked like they were made out of gelatin of different colors, like human-sized Jello statues running around. There was a red one, a green one, and a blue one. She could use them to simply outnumber an opponent, or merge with one, two, or all three. Merging with the red one would grant her super strength and toughness, merging with the green one would grant her super speed, and merging with the blue one gave her telekinetic powers. Merging with all three made her super strong, super fast cape with telekinesis. Or she could simply keep them separate so that they could use their powers on their own. It was only half-strength without her being merged with them, but remaining separate added the benefit of out flanking the opponent. How the **fuck** she was still considered a minor threat was utterly beyond me. Honestly, if the schools really wanted to keep kids off drugs, they should just explain what Greaser's power was and then mention that she was still nothing more than another pathetic, drug-pushing member of the most universally mocked bunch of villains in the city. Meth, not even fucking once.

In that second, however, she didn't look so pathetic. Greaser and all three of her colorful 'friends' were coming straight for me. I barely had time to register that the green one was moving before it smacked me across the face. For something that looked like it was made of gelatin, the thing hit pretty hard, knocking me to the ground with a yelp before groaning into my comm. "You better be ready to take off."

"Take off?" Greaser echoed in her distinctly Hispanic-accented voice. "We ain't takin' off nowhere, pinche puta. Mush and I, we gonna rip you apart. Then maybe we'll go back on that train and fuck up a few o'those hostages just to pay you back for starting this mierda, huh?"

Coming back to my feet, I turned that way, lifting my chin. "That right? Well, you know, there is a slight problem with that plan. Two, actually."

She sneered back at me, the simple mask that she wore over the top half of her face leaving her mouth uncovered. "That right? You tell me what the problem is, maybe I don't let the boys here have their own fun with you." She nodded over her shoulder at the armed and still standing thugs. "Make me laugh, chica, tell me why we can't do just what I said. Cuz you know my speedy-girl can hit you anywhere you pop up, you try that teleport bullshit again."

"All right," I agreed amicably. "The first thing that's wrong with your plan for you and Mush to tear me apart and then go back on that train to kill some hostages is that... you don't have Mush."

Making a noise of confusion, Greaser turned that way, just in time to see the secondary body that Mush had formed out of all those rocks and other debris literally blow apart, as Theo's large form appeared, catching the pink goblin man in one massive hand before shoving him down to the ground and holding him there.

Yeah, Theo hadn't actually disappeared. It had just looked like he did. The truth was that he _shrank._ Theo's power required that he touch a metal, any metal at all, in order to shift his form into it. But once he had done that, the boy could also either grow up to enormous size **or** shrink to the size of a bug. It was a package deal, apparently. He couldn't grow or shrink in his standard form, he needed to be shifted into some kind of metal for it to work.

In this case, he had simply shrunk himself down and waited for Mush to show himself. Then he had gotten in close, positioning himself inside the creep's armored body. When the time was right, he simply grew big once again. Doing so from the inside had burst Mush's secondary body, leaving him defenseless.

The Merchant thugs were cursing, Greaser starting to blurt an order when I continued in a louder voice. "Oh, and the second thing wrong with that plan? You don't have a train either."

It was true. The train was already pulling away from them, running backwards along the track the way they had come. In the distance, I heard a few shouts, followed by the loud howl of Bitch's dogs.

That was her part of the plan. As soon as we were sure Greaser and Mush were off the train with as many of the regular thugs as possible, Bitch, Nimue, and Regent had ridden down to that end with the dogs. There, Tyler and Alec had jumped on board to deal with the Merchants that were left, while Rachel hooked up the chains that we had prepared to the train itself. Now her pack was working together to drag the train the other way down the track.

"Hey, hey, hey! Motherfucker!" Greaser shouted. All three of her Jello-selves were coming for her. She was finally taking this seriously enough to merge into her full-powered form.

It was too late. Before she could finish merging, a dart from Tattletale's previously appropriated tranquilizer rifle appeared right in the side of her neck. The woman blinked in disbelief, mumbled something about us not fighting fair, then collapsed after another second or two. Her Jello-selves vanished immediately.

The remaining non-cape Merchants seemed torn between chasing after the train and fighting us. I shrugged pointedly. "Do what you want, boys. But ahhh, she's still got most of a clip up there." I gestured off the way Tattletale was. "And I've got plenty of juice here." I held the stun guns up for them, then nodded to where Theo was still holding Mush trapped against the ground. "And Alloy's got a free arm if anyone else wants a hug."

"Or," I continued, cracking one side of my neck and then the other. "You could surrender."

It only took them a handful of seconds to make the right decision.

* * *

Madison wasn't on the train. Her parents were, but I couldn't exactly ask them why their daughter wasn't with them. Not that I hadn't tried. The Clements were just... not in any condition to answer questions. Like most of the other prisoners, they had been drugged heavily. But from what I could get out of them, their daughter had never been a prisoner of the Merchants.

So where the **hell** was Madison?! What had happened to her? My mounting confusion over that situation was rivaled only by my panic that something awful had happened to her while I'd been focused on the Merchants.

Only Lisa had been able to keep me on task. There was something else we had to do. First, we quickly helped the others load as much of the Merchants cash and other valuable materials that the train had been hauling onto the dogs. Then Bitch set off to take them back to the base.

Then it had been time for Tattletale and me to head out as well to finish this the right way. Regent, Nimue, and Alloy had stayed behind to watch over both the prisoners and the hostages on the train where Bitch's dogs had left it. When the time came, before the authorities showed up, the three of them would use a couple of motorcycles that were hidden in the bushes nearby. Nimue had assured us that she could make sure they disappeared before the PRT got anywhere near them. For the moment, however, until we pointed the so-called good guys in the right direction, someone had to make sure nothing happened to the former prisoners, some of whom were in pretty ugly shape after everything they'd been through.

Tattletale and I, meanwhile, took one of the other motorcycles to head into town. Lisa had driven with me perched on the back, carrying both of us back to the city.

"Sure you wanna do it this way?" Lisa asked as we approached the destination.

"Yeah, I'm sure." I assured her, holding tight as the motorcycle made a tight turn up into a parking lot.

"Okay then." she brought the bike to a stop in front of a building. "Good luck."

I nodded and hopped down, then looked up at the building in front of me. Inwardly, I was still near-tears. Madison. Where was she? What was happening to her? Where had she been if she wasn't with the Merchants? Did she know what happened to her parents? Were her parents even going to be all right?

Shoving those thoughts aside, I focused. We had to finish this. So here went nothing. I used my power and headed inside.

A very short time later, I positioned myself behind two men who were focused on their microphones and computers, waited a beat, and then restarted time.

"Seriously, man, I know you love your wife and all, but her lasagna tastes like dog farts. You know it does, don't be lying just because you married her." The man on the right crowed obnoxiously. "The Comet knows good food and he knows bad food, and that, my friend, is the worst!"

Before the man beside him could say anything, the first continued, addressing the mic. "Let's hear about some other awful things you people have eaten. I guarantee it's not as bad as Two-Tony's wife's lasagna. That shit is foul! You've got no idea, folks, none at all. Okay, let's..."

He trailed off, because Two-Tony, the big guy beside him, had noticed my presence and kicked him while staring. Harvey 'Comet' Dyson turned to stare as well, the silence dragging on for a few seconds.

"It... looks like we have a... guest," Two-Tony finally managed.

Before speaking, I deepened my voice, altering it as much as I could. The last thing I wanted was for Sophia or Anne to recognize it. "Redshift," I announced before adding. "Leader of the Undersiders." With a smirk that was hidden by the mask, enjoying the expression on their faces, I added, "You boys made a bet, didn't you? Something about whether we were still a real team?"

"You, uhm, you got something to say about that?" Two-Tony was the one to speak again, 'Comet' just sitting there gaping like a fish.

Knowing that the microphone was picking up my words and transmitting them over the radio through the city, I smiled. "The PRT should check the train about two miles down the track outside town."

"What're they gonna find there?" Two-Tony asked quickly.

I paused and looked toward the man. Then I answered him simply before using my power to disappear again.

"The answer to your bet."

 **Interlude 9A – Danny**

 _ **Friday, April 29th, 2011**_

"I wish... that I could make up my mind about whether I'm more proud of her or terrified for her." Danny Hebert murmured softly, the words barely audible even to himself. His gaze remained fixed on the pristine, neatly trimmed grass at his feet. "Seeing that drive in Vegas, hearing what they said she did at the Empire farm, it just, she is just so... amazing. She is. I've only seen a little of it, only a little, but just that was enough. My god, I don't know how she moves like that. She's so strong. But-" Here, his voice caught. Here, the words failed to come properly. His voice failed him, and the mostly-bald man, who in his youth had been the quintessential nerd (long before that term had begun to gain a more positive and acceptable connotation) finally lifted his gaze away from the grass. His eyes rose to take in the perfectly chiseled gravestone, the name of his late wife engraved across the front. Only then, raised by her spirit as he had been before her death, did he speak the words aloud. "I'm afraid of the world that she's become a part of. I'm afraid that I'm going to let her go out there, and she won't come back."

Slowly sinking down to one knee, Danny raised a hand, pressing two fingers to his lips before touching the name. Annette Rose Hebert. His kiss-touched fingers dragged along each letter while the long, shuddering sigh that escaped the man's mouth continued from the start to the end, finally exhaling the last bit of his air on the final T. His eyes closed, and he felt that familiar pain. "Annette," he spoke the words even more quietly, barely more than a breath. "I miss you. You would've done all of this better. You'd know what to do. You'd know how to help her, what to say, how to make it all okay again."

He fell silent then for a few seconds, raw emotions twisting openly on his face before the words were pulled reluctantly from him. "You would have noticed the bullying before it got that bad."

That was his shame. His failure. Out of everything he had done in his life, how could he call himself a man, a **father** if he hadn't noticed that his own daughter was being bullied so horrifically? What kind of person was he when he couldn't do anything about that bullying even after he _had_ found out about it? While Taylor had laid in that hospital bed, supposedly unresponsive, what had he accomplished as far as finding justice for what had happened to her? In his grief, his horror at himself and the situation, he'd allowed others to trample over him, over **Taylor** , all in the name of protecting the status quo. They had wanted to sweep things under the rug, to get everything back to normal. And he had allowed it to happen. He hadn't fought hard enough. He hadn't paid enough attention. His focus every single day throughout those first couple of weeks had been on spending as much time as possible either with the doctors or with Taylor. Every movement she made had brought him hope, only to be crushed back down when the doctors explained it away as involuntary motion. It wasn't her conscious mind making herself move, they had said. So he had let it go. He hadn't pushed them as hard as he should have.

And now, now Taylor was mobile again. More than that, she was a cape. She was a very _strong_ cape, according to that Faultline woman, and what little he had seen had confirmed it. Taylor was not helpless. Not anymore. Now she was... she was beyond anything he could understand. She was out of his league in every conceivable way. Trying to hold onto her, trying to keep her down, to stop her from going with Faultline's team, would have ruined her. That he was convinced of. He may not completely agree with everything those people did, every choice they made, but he did know that they had helped his daughter. When no one else had been able to do it, they had come up with the answer.

So he let her go. Danny allowed his baby girl to go out on these dangerous trips with this team of, being completely honest with himself, criminals. Not because he agreed with them, but because that's what was best for Taylor. That was what helped her, what worked _for her._ At this point, there was absolutely nothing more important than that. Nothing else made sense. He'd lost the house, their home. And Taylor had lost her own movement, her literal freedom. If her power wasn't active, and without the special suit that she wore, his daughter was a prisoner in her own body. She was completely paralyzed.

All because he hadn't paid enough attention. Because he hadn't noticed enough of what was wrong. Because he hadn't put a stop to it. If he had, if he'd had any idea, if he'd opened his eyes just once and seen how miserable his baby was, damn it! If he'd done anything, she wouldn't have suffered so much.

Even now, as strong as she had become, she had still lost people that she clearly cared about. That Newter boy, and Spitfire. No, Emily. That was the poor girl's name. Faultline had told him, had shared that much with him because he'd asked to be able to find her grave and pay his respects. Even if he hadn't known her at all. It was her connection to that nurse that had led Faultline to Taylor to begin with. And that was enough for Danny to feel the tragedy of her death.

He hadn't known what to say to Taylor after learning of the death of her teammates, her friends. He had no idea how to help her, or that poor Elle, whose response to Faultline asking if him seeing her unmasked was okay had been that 'Taylor's father would be a good man.' Then he'd spent hours in their room at the club, trying to find the right thing to say to help either of them process what had happened. In the end, he had mostly ended up sitting in silence while Taylor and Elle lay side-by-side on the floor, hands moving occasionally as they interacted with things beyond his ability to see or understand.

But he was there. He was there for when Taylor needed him. In those times when she sat up, when her hand raised, he was at her side in an instant. He took her hand, he spoke softly, he told her stories about her mother, stories that he had never actually told Taylor before. He reminisced, he talked about random days from when they had been dating. Not even overly important or romantic days. Just normal ones, the hundreds of average, ordinary, absolutely amazing days that had led up to their marriage.

He didn't cry during those stories. The memories were far too happy to allow the incursion of unwanted tears to tarnish them. His voice remained bright, hopeful, optimistic. He had to. Taylor needed him to.

Only now, in the cemetery at his wife's grave after visiting Emily Friesen's, did he let the tears come.

After a few more minutes of quiet conversation (with as well as he knew his wife, it wasn't nearly as one-sided as most might have thought), the man slowly pushed himself up. He rose to his feet, brushed a finger under his glasses to find the familiar tear there, and then pressed it against the grave marker.

He was turning to leave when a hoarse voice spoke, calling his attention a few rows over. "Mr. Hebert?" It was a voice that was brittle with fresh pain, the emotion all-too familiar to him.

Turning, it took Danny a few seconds to orient his thinking and remember why the younger woman, a brunette in her late-twenties, appeared so familiar. Then he had it. "Rebecca? Rebecca Johansen?"

She nodded, wiping her hand over her blotchy, tear-stained face once before starting to speak. "Yeah, it's m-" Her voice caught, and the woman closed her eyes before giving a violent shudder. "It's me."

"What..." Frowning at the sight of the woman who had babysat Taylor over a decade earlier standing in front of him so clearly distraught, Danny took a moment to collect his thoughts and find the right words. Don't ask if she was okay, she obviously wasn't. That much was clear. What she was doing was equally obvious. Finally, with a feeling of total inadequacy, he asked quietly, "Who?"

Her breath caught a little, eyes straying down to the tombstone at her own feet. When she answered, her voice was even more vulnerable than it had been, the loss as fresh for her as he remembered his own being in the days following Annette's funeral. "My husband. Donny. He—he was—died." The poor woman's mouth opened again to say something after that, but she stalled briefly, ending with, "He's gone." Tears returned, the horror of what she was saying aloud renewing them. "He's really gone."

Standing there for a moment, unsure of himself, Danny saw the pain in Rebecca's eyes. He remembered his own, how fresh it had been in those early days. Wincing at the thought, he stepped around the gravestones and crossed to where she was standing. Still feeling somewhat awkward, he cleared his throat before speaking. "I'm sorry." It was inadequate. How many people had said similar things to him? Surely he had to have something better to say. Please. Please. If there was a single positive take-away from these years without his beloved, let it be knowing the right thing to say to someone else who had just lost theirs. Let him say the right thing for once, let him do _something_ to help someone who was feeling the pain he knew all too well. As little as he actually knew Rebecca now, at one point she had been close to Annette. Close enough to not only be her student aide at the college, but even babysit Taylor as a toddler. Somehow, he had to say **something** that would help her, even only a little bit.

The words, when they did come, were slow and uncertain. "Tell me about him. Please."

Her eyes stayed down on the grave. "It was the attack, the gang-"

"No," Danny interrupted, shaking his head. He waited until she looked up with those red-rimmed eyes before explaining. "Don't tell me that. Tell me about him. Tell me how he lived. Who was he?"

Rebecca opened her mouth, then shut it. She looked pained for a moment before breathing out. Then she started to talk. She told him about her husband, about who Donny Johansen was.

And he listened for as long as she was willing to speak.

* * *

Some time later, Danny stepped through the doors of the old apartment building and paused at the sight of the woman who sat at the bottom of the stairs he would need to take to get to his own apartment.

"You could have waited inside," he informed her quietly. "That's why I gave you a key."

The woman shook her head before pushing herself to her feet. "I couldn't do that, Danny. I don't want to intrude. I don't..." She looked away, shame written across her face. "I don't want to be here at all."

He stood motionless for a moment. Emotions, more than he could name or describe, worked their way through the man in that brief time. When he finally spoke, his voice was even more hoarse than it had been throughout the entire time that he had been talking with Rebecca. "I wish I knew what to say."

"You shouldn't have to say anything," she replied softly, her anguish apparent. "You shouldn't have to be in this situation at all. I should have just left you alone. After everything that happened, everything that Alan allowed to-"

"Stop it, Zoe." Danny couldn't quite keep all the anger out of his voice at the mention of that man's name. His fist clenched a little, tightening while he kept his arm rigid at his side. "Don't. Just don't."

A handful of silent seconds passed between them, both looking at one another. He was the first to find his voice again. "Did you have any luck? Anyone know the guy you were talking about?"

The woman flinched. "No, not yet. Whoever gave that drug to Al—to my husband is very good at keeping themselves hidden. Every old contact from when Annette and I were with-" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "-Lustrum just keeps drawing a complete blank. They've got nothing on this guy, or whoever he's working for. They're ghosts, Danny. It scares me. Some of the people I've talked to, I thought they could always find anybody. I've spoken to them a couple times before now, helping Al—you know who out on a case here and there. They always find the guy, no matter how they hide. But this? Now? Nothing. They can't come up with a single real lead. I'd think that Alan made it up if I hadn't seen Anne myself."

Danny had seen her too. The newest Protectorate cape. Not that he was telling Taylor about that. She had enough to deal with without being told that the sister of her former best friend turned personal tormentor had joined the Protectorate.

And he had promised Zoe that he would keep it a secret after she came to his apartment needing someone to talk to about the absurdly stupid thing that Alan had done. He had been a logical choice.

He had listened, and offered her a place to stay while she was looking for leads to this mysterious man with the vial that had supposedly been responsible for her daughter's transformation. Zoe hoped against hope that if she found the man, she would be able to find a cure for what had been done to Anne.

His reasons, he had to admit to himself, weren't purely altruistic. If there was a way to reverse the process that gave powers, he wanted to have it available for Taylor when and if she wanted it. After all they had been through, he'd never try to make her take it (if such a thing existed), but he wanted it to be available. He wanted to give Taylor the choice, the opportunity to be a normal girl if she chose to be.

It was a long shot. It probably wouldn't ever pan out. But he wanted to try. He _needed_ to try. And if that meant spending time with Zoe Barnes, well then he was just going to have to concentrate on remembering the time that they had been close, back when she and Annette had been all-but inseparable college roommates turned best friends, instead of these last couple of years.

He'd let things go too far, he'd let their friendship deteriorate after Annette's death. Another thing he had failed at. Another thing he needed to do better, try harder with. As angry as he was every time he even thought of the way Zoe's daughter had treated his own, or how hard her husband had worked to cover it up, he had to focus on what was best for Taylor.

So he set aside that anger, cooling the temper that he had been so well known for, and forced himself to speak as calmly as possible. "I'll go out with you tomorrow. It's Saturday. Maybe we'll have more luck if you've got someone with you."

The look that Zoe gave him was doubtful, but she nodded. "How is... how is Taylor?"

Danny had told her the same story as everyone else, that Taylor was living with a private doctor who was doing wonders for her and just needed time to work with her. He left out the part about the doctor being an old friend of Annette's, since she was one of only a couple of people who would immediately know that for the lie it was.

"Not that good," he admitted. "She... had a friend pass away. Someone she met out there."

Zoe flinched. "Oh god, poor Taylor. Is... is there anything-"

"No," he interrupted before she could finish asking if there was anything she could do. There wasn't. They both knew that.

Conversation over, the two of them silently climbed the stairs. Danny produced his keys, unlocking the door before pushing it open. He let Zoe go through first, then stepped in after and flicked on the light switch.

The place had been destroyed. At first, Danny simply stared in shock, mouth open as he gazed around the pitifully furnished, tiny apartment. What little had been there was broken, overturned, literally ripped inside out. The place had been ransacked.

Zoe, as shocked as he was, let out a yelp, jerking backwards before her eyes moved to take everything in. "It wasn't thieves." She pointed to the overturned television with the DVD player lying next to it. "They didn't take anything. Wait, did they?"

Danny started to shake his head. Then he noticed the closet in the corner that was standing open. Moving that way quickly, he stopped in front of it and stared at the empty spot of floor just inside. "It's gone," he said quietly, in shock.

"What?" Zoe pressed. "What's gone, Danny?"

"Taylor's things. The box of her stuff, what seemed important, I put it here in the closet for her. It's gone. Someone took it, someone took-" The outrage of the whole situation was driving his voice upward toward a shout. "Someone took Taylor's box!"

"But why?" Zoe tried to ask. "Why would someone break in here, destroy everything in sight, and not take anything except for a box of old things that belonged to Taylor?"

Before Danny could respond, the phone gave a muffled ring. He turned and took a step toward the overturned couch, bending down to fish the handset out from under the fallen cushions before answering with a sharp, "Yeah?"

Kurt, a long-time friend, spoke up quickly. "Danny? Turn on the news."

Wincing, Danny shook his head. "Not really in a position to. Why, what's wrong?"

"That principal at Taylor's school," Kurt answered. "They just found her body. She was murdered, Danny."

"Murdered?" Danny's eyes widened, and he saw Zoe mouth the same word back at him in confusion. "What do you mean, Blackwell was murdered? Who—how—what?"

"That isn't the important part, man." Kurt hesitated, clearly unsure of how to say the next part. "Look, they found her down by the docks, all right? I was there. I saw the body before they pushed everyone away. I saw what was written on the wall by the body."

"What? What was written there?" Danny was afraid he already knew.

"Taylor's name, Danny." Kurt's voice was quiet. "Whoever killed her wrote Taylor's name by the body. And Danny? They wrote something else too.

"Everyone responsible dies."

 **Interlude 9B – Purity**

 _Saturday, April 30th, 2011_

The sound of breaking glass filled the night air, accompanied immediately by a whoop of exhilaration. The two shotgun wielding thugs clad in camo gear and ski masks cheered one another while the one who had kicked his booted foot through the glass display case in the pawn shop they had chosen to rob did so again to the next case in line. Both cases held guns not unlike the ones they themselves carried.

"Get 'em all in the bag, Louie!" The first man ordered, his weapon remaining trained on the shop's owner, an elderly man with long graying hair and a pudgy belly. "Load up, we making bank tonight!"

"Don't you go calling me by my name there, idiot!" The second man complained while bending down to scoop the various guns into the large gym bag they had brought in. "It's why we got these masks."

"Now just shut up," the first man shot back. "Ain't no reason anyone gonna know who you are just by your first name. You got any idea how many Louis's there are in the world? More'n you, I guarantee."

The two men's bickering was interrupted as the room around them suddenly grew quite noticeably brighter, as though the lights of the store had abruptly been dialed up several notches.

"What the hell? Who put on the-" Louie turned to find the source of the sudden illumination. His eyes didn't have to scan far before he found himself staring at the female figure in the white bodysuit.

Kayden, floating there just off the floor, knew what the men were seeing. When her powers were active, the glow emanating from her hair and eyes was so bright that looking directly at her face was difficult, and discerning exact features basically impossible. That was why she didn't wear a mask.

Still, they didn't have to see her face to know who she was, and the way the men abruptly straightened with audible gulps made it clear that they were indeed fully aware of who had joined them in the store.

"Now hey, we ain't got no beef with you or yours there, lady." The man who wasn't Louie protested. "We didn't know this was your territory, aight? Louie and me, we ain't trying to infringe or nothing."

Resisting the urge to blast both of them clear out through the back of the store, Kayden pointed to the floor and spoke up clearly so that there could be no misunderstandings. "Put your guns down, now."

The men looked at one another, expressions hidden behind their masks. Kayden could tell what they were thinking. Two of them, one of her. Confined space, shotguns in their hands. They were separated by enough space that it was conceivable that one could hit her with a shot before she blasted them both. The question they were asking each other through silent gazes was whether they were each willing to take the risk that **they** would be the one she got a shot off at before the other managed to hit her.

Before they could come to a conclusion on their own, Kayden helped them along by sending out a tiny sliver of power. The blast of light from her finger was barely a fraction of what she was capable of, the equivalent of only just slightly turning the tap for a second to let a capful of water escape the faucet. Even then, that small bit of power, the slightest that she was capable of emitting hit the man who wasn't Louie in the chest. He was torn off the floor and hurtled backward to crash into a display stand of DVD's where he lay in a pained daze, moaning deliriously to himself, his gun laying forgotten nearby.

She addressed Louie himself then. "You know why I didn't tell you to put them down 'in five seconds' or 'by the time I count to three?' It's because I didn't mean 'in three seconds,' I meant now." Her voice turned hard as she pointed her hand toward him. "And I really hate repeating myself."

With a gulp, the second thug did as he was told, setting his gun down. Kayden then freed a few zipties from her costume and tossed them over, instructing him to secure his friend first, and then himself.

When that was finally done and both men were lying on their stomachs in the middle of the floor, she let out a long breath. That could have gone a lot worse than it did. Letting herself land on the floor and dialing down the light a bit, she turned toward the shop owner and began to speak. "If you call the po-"

Spittle struck her in the cheek, taking the woman by surprise. The shop owner had taken up one of the abandoned shotguns, and was holding it trained on her. His lined face was hard. "Get out," he ordered before spitting in her direction again. "Get the hell out of my store, you fucking Nazi cunt."

Grimacing, Kayden kept her hands lowered. Normally she might have raised them to show that she didn't mean him any harm, but with her powers, that was generally seen as more of a threat than reassurance. "I'm not here to hurt you, or take anything," she spoke calmly. "I'm just trying to help."

The man glared at her, his eyes full of far more hate than he had held for the men robbing him. "I never asked for no help from you. I'd rather give my whole shop over to these fucks than let another racist bitch push me around. I ain't paying you no protection money, or anyone else in your fucking Empire. You hear me? You don't like it, you go ahead and kill me. But I ain't giving you shit, so forget it."

Taking a step back toward the door carefully, Kayden shook her head. "I don't want protection money, and I'm not with the Empire. I haven't been for a long time. Besides, Kaiser's dead. There is no more Empire. Things are different now. We're just trying to clean up the streets, get the gangs off our-"

"Like I care what you racist fucks call yourselves?" The man snarled. "Get the hell out! You come back here and I swear to God I'll put your ass in the ground where it belongs. You think changing your mind now matters one shit to all the people you fucking killed, all the lives you ruined? Get out. Get out!"

She did so. With a sigh, Kayden backed through the open door, dialed her light back up, and flew up into the sky. She had been planning to continue her patrol after this little incident. But right then, she really just wanted to get home to see her precious little girl, the one thing she knew she'd done right.

Unfortunately, the list of things she'd done wrong was hell of a lot longer.

* * *

 _Sunday, May 1st_

"You hate me, don't you?" Cassie demanded the next evening. The blonde almost-fifteen-year old stood holding onto Aster at arms length as if Kayden had just handed her a bag full of excrement. "You're pissed that I didn't join you a long time ago, and now you're taking it out on me by making me babysit."

"Don't be ridiculous," Kayden replied. "I make you do all of the **dishes** because you didn't join us. Babysitting is just a special bonus." She smiled before softening her voice. "And I don't hate you. If I hated you, I'd never let you near my daughter, silly girl. You'll be fine. Just let her watch her cartoons until she gets tired. She's already eaten, and if she needs a snack, there's cheerios on the table."

"Yeah, yeah," Cassie grumbled, pulling the baby to her chest and bouncing her a little bit before reflexively smiling at the resulting giggle. "You're lucky you're so cute, buster. Damn kinderschema."

"Damn what, now?" Kayden asked with a raised eyebrow as she bent to tug on a pair of shoes.

"Kinderschema," Cassie repeated, glancing toward her while bouncing Aster. When it was clear that Kayden had no idea what she was talking about, the girl snorted. "You know, for a former Nazi, you should really brush up on this sort of thing, since it was a Nazi psychologist that came up with the term. It means all the stuff we find on babies that's adorable and makes us want to protect them. You know, big eyes, large head, round cheeks, that stuff. It's the same shit they put in Disney characters or anime to make us feel protective of the characters. Biology. We're protective of babies, and when we see those traits in something else, like an animal or a cartoon character, we want to protect them. Kinderschema."

Shaking her head at the younger girl, Kayden replied, "Actually, I'm trying to _forget_ as much of the Nazi stuff as possible, not learn even more about it." As soon as she said it, the woman winced. "Wait, that sounded pretty bad, didn't it? We shouldn't be forgetting our mistakes, we should be learning from them. Or something. God, I'm bad at this." She groaned before straightening up. "Forget I said anything. Whatever you're doing seems to work for you." To change the subject, she nodded toward the laptop that was open on the table with a messenger screen displayed. "How is Archive doing?" She knew that Cassie and the newest Brigade member had been talking in various ways for the past week.

"Eh," Cassie shrugged. "She says she's okay, but you know. Err, I guess you don't. Her parents were some of the people who... wait, should I tell you this?" A slight frown touched her face. "You could conceivably figure out who she is if I tell you what's wrong, or at least narrow it down a lot."

Chuckling in spite of herself, Kayden shrugged. "I'm not really interested in seeking out her identity, I promise. Neither I nor our team have any quarrel with Archive. I'm glad the two of you are friends."

After considering that for a moment, Cassie finally nodded. "Well, her parents were some of those that were taken by the Merchants. Apparently they were uhh, kind of messed up in there. They're still in the hospital being taken care of, and she's staying with her teammates for now." She hesitated then before admitting, "I think there's more to it, something else that's wrong with her family, but she won't tell me what it is. Whenever I try to push her, she just clams up and says she can't talk about it."

"See if she wants to come over to visit while we're gone," Kayden instructed. "Since we're letting Vanessa and Dinah stay in Gabriele's penthouse tonight, you two will be the only ones here tonight, and I doubt Aster's going to expose her identity if she wants to relax."

Smiling then, she leaned in to kiss her baby's cheek. "Are you, my little secret-keeper? Are you gonna expose us? Are you? No, you're not," she tickled the baby, making the tiny girl squeal with delight. "Nuh uh! You keep those secrets, you keep those secrets! Yes, you do, yeeeessss you do!"

"Am I interrupting something?" Gabriele spoke up from the nearby doorway. "Don't you dare go Mommy on me tonight, Kayden. We've got plans, remember. Just back away from the baby."

Feeling a pang in her chest, Kayden reached out to squeeze Aster's little arm gently. "Maybe I should-"

"Oh no you don't," Cassie extended a hand to tap against the other woman's hip before using her power to push Kayden away, making her slide backward along the kitchen floor by tugging her pants that way.

"Good girl, Cass," Gabriele gave the teenager a thumbs up before catching Kayden by the arm. "Let's go, time to grab Dot and get out of here while the getting's good. We are not going to be late tonight."

Grudgingly allowing herself to be pulled into the other room, Kayden changed the subject. "I think I need to change my name and my costume," she spoke slowly. "After last night, well, I need to change a lot if we're going to get anywhere. Too many people associate me with Max, even now."

"You have any names in mind?" Gabriele asked while pulling her down the hall toward the bathroom.

"I'm not sure," Kayden admitted with a sigh. "Everything just sounds like another version of Purity." She shook her head before asking, "What about you? Did you have any luck today as either Gabriele or Iron Rain?"

Gabriele sighed at that. "As Gabriele, sort of. I met with the PRT. They've seized all of Max's assets. I'm pretty sure they've got a damn good idea of who I am, but they can't come out and accuse me, and I can't just unmask and tell them we're playing on the side of the angels now. So the whole meeting was a whole lot of us **not** saying things. I'm not challenging them seizing the company, so maybe that'll be enough to keep them off our backs for awhile. At least until we convince them we're _really_ trying to do good.

"And as far as Iron Rain goes, even less luck on that front. Hookwolf's still got Menja, Crusader, Alabaster, and some of Kaiser's loyalist troops. They're probably focused on getting Logi and those captured Gesellschaft troops out of lockup before they get sent away for good. They're out there, but I couldn't find any sign of them and no one's talking."

"Yeah, I got the 'wink wink' impression from the PRT when I talked to them too," Kayden agreed. "They know more than they can outright accuse us of, so make sure you keep an eye on who's following you whenever you go out. And we'll sweep this place for listening devices every few days for awhile. They might back off for now, but if we get on their bad side again, I'd rather they not have more ammunition to use against us."

Before Gabriele could respond to that, they reached the bathroom where Dorothy Schmidt stood. The woman was facing the mirror, scrubbing at the already pristine surface almost furiously with a wet rag.

"Dot?" Kayden spoke up carefully after watching the woman for a moment. "What are you doing?"

"It's wrong," Dorothy replied sharply while scrubbing even harder at the mirror. "It's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong. That's not me. It's not. The mirror is wrong, it's saying the wrong thing. It's lying." She grimaced, wetting the rag in the sink quickly before scrubbing the glass once again. "It's wrong."

She wasn't washing the mirror, Kayden realized. She was trying to scrub away her own appearance. Ever since Geoff had died, Dorothy had stopped taking care of herself. Her hair was ratty, her eyes bloodshot and lined with dark spots, her face blotchy. She looked like someone who was in mourning.

And for someone like Dorothy, whose life had been made up of false appearances, of _looking_ normal at the cost of everything else, including her own sanity, that was completely unconscionable.

After exchanging a glance with Gabriele, Kayden stepped into the bathroom. Taking Dorothy by the hand, she gently eased the rag down. "Here, let's help you get cleaned up. Then we're going out."

"Out?" Dorothy echoed, her voice ragged. "Another fight? Another threat?"

"No, not this time," Kayden replied while shaking her head. "This time, we're going out for something completely different. Gabriele's having her first date with that girl from the Travelers."

"That doesn't sound like something I would do," Dorothy spoke slowly, hand twitching up as though trying to wipe at the mirror again.

"You're right," Kayden agreed. "It doesn't sound like something you'd do at all. And that's exactly why we're doing it.

"Because 'something we don't normally do' is exactly what all of us need right now."

* * *

A little bit over an hour later, the three women stood in front of the movie theater on the south end of town. Dorothy was tugging at the simple jeans and comfortable sweatshirt that she was wearing, her expression pained. "It's not me," she lamented. "This isn't what I wear, it's not right. It's not what I look like."

Gabriele smiled from nearby, taking the other woman's hand. "You're right, Dot, it's not. You don't look like yourself. You look better. You look good."

"Geoff," Dorothy replied sharply, hands pushing at her own face. "I'm supposed to be in black. Veil. Bad. Mourning, he's gone. He's gone and I can't be here. I'm supposed to be in mourning. That's the right thing, that's the right way. Everything has its time and everything has its place. I make coffee but who am I making it for? He's not here. He's not coming back."

"Maybe this was a mistake," Kayden started a little hesitantly.

Gabriele shook her head firmly. "No, it wasn't a mistake. Difficult, but not a mistake." Stepping closer, she put her hands up and pressed her palms against either side of Dorothy's face. "Dot, look at me, okay? Listen, I don't have any idea what you're going through right now, or how you feel. None of us do. What Geoff meant to you, what the two of you were to each other, none of us understand it. I'm not going to lie and say we do, because we don't. You were both something very special, very... unique to each other. And finding out who you are without him is going to take a lot of time and effort. But you can do that, Dot. I believe you can. I believe that you are more than one half of a person. You are a whole person. You are more than just part of a team or half of a partnership. You are you. Who that is, what you're capable of, is going to take you awhile to figure out. But we're here for you, okay? We're not giving up on you, and you are not alone.

"If you give this a chance, if you start tonight and you really can't handle it, we'll go home. I promise. A date with this girl isn't worth making you feel worse. I wouldn't do that to you, Dot. I just want you to try. I just want you to give it a shot, okay? We want to see you."

Smiling a bit, she lowered her hands to take both of Dot's. "So can you do that? Give this a chance? Like I said, if you give it a shot and you really hate it, we'll leave. You have my word."

Dorothy had just given a slight nod of agreement when a voice spoke up from nearby. "Uh, hey."

Turning, Kayden saw the golden girl from the Travelers step closer. She was wearing a heavy jacket with the hood up, and a scarf covered the bottom half of her face. Waving one glove covered hand, she cleared her throat. "I uhh, I hope I wasn't late."

"Nope," Gabriele shook her head, turning that way. "You're not late at all. We were just having a last minute discussion. Now, ahem, Marissa, this is Kayden and Dot. Dot and Kayden, this is Marissa."

"You're umm," Marissa started before hesitating. She lowered her voice considerably. "You're Purity."

"I am," Kayden answered, straightening a little bit. "Is that going to be a problem?"

Marissa paused, then shook her head. "Did you really help kill Kaiser?"

"Yes." The answer came not from Kayden or Gabriele, but from Dot. The woman spoke up firmly, holding herself a little straighter as her eyes met the girl with the gold skin. "He's dead because we helped kill him. He deserved to die." Lifting her chin slightly, she added, "He killed my husband."

"Oh my god," Marissa's hand touched her mouth and then she flinched. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you think about that. I was just—there's so many rumors and—I'm sorry."

"You do not need to apologize." Dot's voice was soft as she shook her head before lifting a hand, offering it to the girl to shake. "It is a good reminder. Kaiser was a very bad person. Worse than us. We have been bad before. I am told that we are to change now, that we have been changing. I do not know how well I have done. I do not know how well I will do. But now I am just glad he is dead, and that Geoff did not wait long before his murder was avenged."

As Marissa accepted Dorothy's hand, the other woman waited a second before adding, "You are a lesbian then?"

Choking a little bit, Marissa shot a glance toward Gabriele. "I—uhh, umm, I suppose that's—uh, I mean, yes." She coughed, clearly embarrassed. "Is that a-umm, is that a problem?"

When she responded, Dot's voice was curious and thoughtful. "I don't know. I do not... really remember how to decide if I hate something or not. It would have been before. But now, now I do not know what I think. I have not thought for myself for a long time. I'm not sure I remember how.

"But I know that Gabriele is my friend. I have been through a lot with her. So however I feel about your sexual choices or hers, you will not hurt her. Or I will hurt you. I will not lose another one that is close to me. Not now."

Marissa, who had stood still while Dot was speaking, gave a slight nod. "I understand. I'm not spying on your group, Dot, I promise. I'm not here to hurt anyone or to take anyone down. I just... I just like talking to Gabriele and I thought it was time to give this dating thing a shot."

"Okay, okay," Kayden interrupted finally once Dorothy had nodded. "This isn't what we're here for, girls. We're here to see a movie, then have dinner, and have fun with all of it. So, everyone ready for that?"

There was a collection of nods all around, and Kayden nodded in satisfaction. "All right then.

"Let's get this show on the road."


	10. Arc 10: New Directions

_**A/N:** Whooo, here we are again! Thanks for reading, guys. Here's a... nearly 44 thousand word monster of an arc for you. I hope you enjoy. :) On a side-note, Heretical Edge now has a nice, spiffy banner and the wordpress site works for mobile ( I scrounged around and found the button to turn the mobile version on. ;) ) for those who might have been having trouble using your phones to read. _

_checkerboard – Aww, thank you very much. You're right in that there are plenty of fics that stick closer to canon for people who don't enjoy things being changed so much. Those people don't have to read this one. To each their own._

 **10-01 – Taylor**

 _Thursday, April 28th_

I was standing, my tinker-provided costume hidden beneath a simple black dress suit. For this, at the very least, I needed to be upright. I had to, even if part of me was so horrified and ashamed of myself that I almost wanted to burn this suit and then never use my powers again. Never.

They were... they were dead. Emily and Newter. They were dead because of me. Because **I** insisted that we step in. If I hadn't been trying to play hero, they'd still be alive. The girl who was the only reason I'd even _met_ Faultline was dead now, because **I** demanded that we get involved!

And now, this was where we were: standing on the roof of the Palanquin, having our own private memorial service for Newter. Emily had been buried earlier that day in the cemetery by what remained of her family. Emily hadn't talked about them much. They weren't exactly close, as far as I could tell.

Now, well now it hardly mattered, did it?

Teddy, the nurse whose friendship with Emily was what brought me to Faultline to begin with, had gone to that funeral, and now he was here for this one as well. I couldn't bear to let myself focus on him. Not that I had much say in the matter, considering my panoptic vision took in everything anyway, but I did the best I could. I didn't want to know how much he had to hate me right now.

Our 'memorial' wasn't really much of one. We were all just staring at an urn full of ashes that was all that remained of Newter's body and Emily's costume. None of us had decided what to _do_ with those ashes yet, so it just sat there on table in the middle of the roof while we stood away from it and stared.

Beside me, Elle was clutching onto my arm with both of her hands. Tears were falling freely down her face as she clung to me like an anchor. She didn't speak at all, and I could tell that it was taking all of her energy, all of her willpower, to keep herself here in the moment. Every ounce of her wanted to retreat into one of her fantastic parallel worlds, but she'd never forgive herself if it happened. She'd never be able to live with herself if she spaced out during the funeral, so she clung to me and forced herself to focus.

Payton and Gregor were standing on the opposite side of the upright urn. Neither were speaking, their attention focused on staring at the vessel that contained the ashes of one teammate and another teammate's costume.

Olivia was nearby, but she wasn't looking at the urn. Her attention was cast out over the city, and I could hear the girl mumbling now and then. I was trying not to pay attention and eavesdrop, but the nature of my power meant that I heard pretty much every word. She was talking to herself about all the racist pieces of shit she was going to kill.

"I will miss them," Elle finally spoke, her voice a barely audible whisper. I could hear the emotion in her voice as it shook. "They were... my friends. It's not fair. I don't want them to be dead, Taylor. I don't want it. When I wake up, after I was asleep, sometimes I think that it was just a bad dream. I get happy because it was just a dream. But it wasn't. It wasn't a dream, Taylor, it wasn't a dream and they're really gone, and I don't want them to be."

Elle was openly crying by that point, her tears staining my shoulder as she clung even tighter. "I don't want them to be gone. What if they all go away? What if they all die? What if I lose everyone?

"What if I lose you?"

I very nearly jerked myself away from her then. Lose me? Why wasn't she mad at me?! It was my fault that Emily and Newter were dead! It never would've happened if I didn't insist on getting involved. So why didn't she say anything? Why did she keep holding onto me?

"Taylor." Faultline stood in front of us. She watched me for a moment before turning her attention to Elle, her voice softening considerably. "I need to borrow Taylor for a minute, but I'll bring her back."

At first, Elle clung even tighter to my arm. But after a couple of seconds, I felt her iron-grip relax. Her voice was quiet, "Please come back soon, Taylor."

 _I promise I will_. I thought the words directly to her through the... fuck, whatever connection it was that we had whenever I let myself start to be drawn into these alternate worlds of hers. She heard my thoughts like speech, even when I wasn't actually in the other world yet.

In spite of myself, I wondered if the symmetry between our powers was even remotely normal. I'd never heard of it, particularly for two strangers.

So why did **our** powers work so well together? Why did **we** work so well together? How else could that coordination be used? Could other people be taught to coordinate their powers to joint effects the way Elle could physically _pull_ me inside of her other-worlds when she'd never been able to do that anyone else?

There were so many capes in the world. Surely others had found equally beneficial symbiotic combinations.

After leading me to the other side of the roof, far away from the others, Faultline turned to face me. Her voice was firm. "Stop it."

Even if my power hadn't already forced me to be mute, I wouldn't have had time to respond before she continued. "You're blaming yourself for what happened to Newter and Emily. Don't. Stop it. You don't own this team. I don't make decisions based on your whim and say-so. I make the judgment call. Me. I decided it was an acceptable risk. Neither of us had any way of knowing about the Gesellschaft capes. It happens sometimes, and yeah, it fucking sucks. But you do not throw everything away. You take what helps you, what makes you stronger, and you focus on that. You focus on what makes you better. Use it, hold onto it, and keep going.

"Whatever you end up doing though, I want you to remember, going onto that farm was my call, not yours. I am the leader of this team, not you. I make the call, and I bear the consequences. No matter what they might be. Their deaths were _not_ your fault. They were the fault of a bunch of Gesellschaft Nazi capes, most of whom are in prison right now."

That was when Faultline gave me a humorless predatory smile. "But they'll be out again, and when they are, we're going to deal with them. They think it's bad inside, we are going to make them pay for what happened to Newter and Emily.

"But for us to do that, I need you to cut off the blame game. I made the call, **they** killed Newter and Emily. Not you. So focus on getting Elle through this so that her head is back in the game. We need both of you on top of things if we're going to pull off the kind of jobs that we need to do to make those racist bastards pay when the time comes. When they think they're safe and they escaped, that's when we'll hit them. That's when we'll hit all of them. So stop blaming yourself and start focusing on the people who deserve it. Got it?"

Hesitantly, I nodded once, then again. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.

It wasn't my fault.

 _Tuesday, May 3rd_

 _ **This**_ was my fault.

Oh god. Oh my god. No. Someone was dead. The principal of my school was **dead!** She was dead because of me, because of my notebook. According to the police, whoever had killed Principal Blackwell had everything I ever wrote down about what was happening. They knew all of it, assuming they broke the code that I used to record it in, and, to be completely honest, it was kind of a shit code anyway.

So they had it all. They had it all and they were... killing, _killing_ because of me.

What if something bad happened to Emma? I wanted her punished, I wanted _all_ of them punished, but not killed. I didn't want them dead. I just...

I didn't know what I wanted. But not this.

Never this.

"As you can see, Detective Daley, my daughter is still in no condition to get herself a glass of water, let alone actually _kill_ anyone."

I was watching through my father's eyes as he addressed the man in the ill-fitting suit with the obvious gun-shaped lump under the right chest. Both of them were standing in the same room as my body, their voices low as if to avoid disturbing the motionless, supposedly unresponsive lump in the nearby bed.

The house we were in was near the north edge of town. It was one of several properties that Faultline owned under different aliases. At the moment, it was serving as my supposed home-away-from-home.

"Uncle Danny's right." Payton-or Candice Paupers, as she had introduced herself in this case- was playing the nurse who was a friend of the family. I could see her standing by my bed when Dad turned that way. "Taylor's not a criminal, Detective Daley. She's an innocent girl who was horribly attacked."

"I agree with both of you," the man spoke up, running a hand a bit self-consciously back over the shiny bald head that made him look like that assistant principal guy from _Back to the Future._ "And I'm not here to prove otherwise. The girl in that bed is a victim every bit as much as Ruth Blackwell. Unfortunately, she isn't the one whose innocence has been called into question at this point."

Damn it, I hated this. No. I loathed it. Despised it. I was not just a victim. Not anymore. Never again. I was more than that. I was better than that. Don't call me a victim. Don't fucking call me that again.

A very faint, almost unnoticed pressure told me that Payton was squeezing my hand firmly. With my vision in my father's head and focused on the detective, I could only _barely_ feel it almost as a ghost sensation. Somehow, she knew what kind of reaction I was having and was trying to calm me down.

"Me," Dad spoke up, interrupting my train of thought. I could feel his resignation, his instinct to throw himself in front of the oncoming bus if it would protect me from more police interference. "You think I had something to do with what happened, that I either murdered that woman or paid for it to be done."

Detective Daley raised an eyebrow at that. "With all due respect, Mr. Hebert, with your financial situation, I'd be hard pressed to build a case about your ability to order a pizza, let alone a murder."

Shaking his head, the man went on. "As for doing it yourself, the cameras at the cemetery show you arriving before the time of death and leaving after it was done, and Miss Johansen has confirmed your story of speaking with her. So no, while I do have some questions about why you're not living **here** with your daughter, I do not believe that you either killed Ruth Blackwell or paid for it to be done."

"Then why are you here?" Dad asked, casting a glance toward me. "Why did you want to see Taylor?"

"I intend to immerse myself in this situation," Detective Daley replied. "Someone cared enough about what happened to your daughter to murder at least one person over it, and threatened more than that. I wanted to see Taylor for myself, and introduce myself to her. If you don't mind?" Waiting until my father reluctantly waved him on, the man stepped over to the bed and looked down at my body. "Taylor, my name is Detective William Daley. I want you to know that, whoever's killing in your name, I'm going to put a stop to it. What happened to you was abhorrent, but you deserve better than this."

That said, in a move that was clearly calculated to take my father by surprise in order to force a knee-jerk response, the man turned that way and asked, "Do you believe that Alan Barnes is a good man?"

"Not anymore," Dad blurted before stopping with a feeling of confusion. "I mean, what? Why? He... did what he thought he had to do to protect his daughter. I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have done whatever it took, no matter how slimy, to protect Taylor if I had the... ability to do what he did. But I don't see what that has to do with-" I felt his surprise then as he realized. "Wait, Alan? You think-"

"Let's just say that many of Mr. Barnes' actions can only charitably be called _questionable,_ " the detective replied. "Were you aware that he had saved up over six hundred thousand dollars in a bank account shared between him and his wife? Did he ever offer you any of that money as compensation?"

"He tried," Dad admitted, and this time it was my turn to be surprised and confused. "Alan wanted to pay for Taylor's treatments at the hospital. He found out I was selling the house and tried to step in."

Wait... wait... huh? Why would Emma's father do that? Why would he try to step in and save our house, even pay my hospital bills, just to stop Dad from selling our home? This didn't make any sense.

"But you refused, and sold your house anyway," Detective Daley spoke slowly, his tone quiet. "Why?"

"Stubborn and stupid," Dad replied in a quiet voice without taking his eyes off of the spot where my body lay. "I didn't want his money. I didn't want anything to do with that family after everything he did to make sure none of those girls received anything more than a slap on the wrist." There was a moment where Dad went quiet, and I could feel the emotional turmoil in him before he continued. "I wouldn't let him pay for it because I didn't want to _owe him_ a god damn thing. If he paid off Taylor's hospitable bills, he'd start thinking that we were even, that he'd 'fixed things.' I won't let him do that this time."

"When was the last time he mentioned the money to you?" Detective Daley asked before adding, "And, if you don't mind, when was the last time he spoke to you at all, even in passing at the store?"

Dad sighed, his gaze flicking toward the quiet Payton, who was trying to stay as unnoticed as possible. If the detective wanted to talk to her privately, she'd been given enough information to hold her own and answer anything about our family connection or my treatment, but it was better not to push things.

When Dad finally spoke, he sounded tired. "Last time I talked to Alan was the day that I transferred Taylor out of the hospital. He called me to find out why I did it, so I told him she was being taken care of by a friend. He thought it was a bad idea and said if it was a problem of money, then his offer was still on the table. That's when I hung up on him. I haven't heard from the man since then."

"So you're saying that you were not aware that he withdrew that six hundred thousand dollars from his bank account only nine days before the murder of Ruth Blackwell?" The detective's tone was mild, though his eyes focused on my dad with laser-like intensity, scrutinizing every detail. "Which happened to be the day after he had a public argument with Emma that ended with her running away from him?"

If I had been confused before, _now_ I was completely lost. Emma and her father had been fighting? About what? Had she found out about her father's attempt to pay my hospital bills and objected?

"Why would Alan take six hundred thousand dollars out of his account the day after arguing with Emma?" Dad sounded (and felt) about as clueless as I knew I was. "And what does that have to do with what's happening right now? You can't **possibly** think that he had anything to do with this murder."

"There's many things that I'm capable of thinking, Mr. Hebert," Detective Daley replied. "I believe that it's possible for a man to realize that he's made a mistake that has ruined his family, and that he might wish to do absolutely anything to make up for that. I _know_ that he withdrew more than half a million dollars, and that that money had to go somewhere. I know that he called off work for over a week before the murder, only to go into the office the day that it happened and quit his job. I know that he has not been back to that house since that morning, but that no one has any idea where he actually _is._ I know that people who are being crushed by guilt often do very awful things in an attempt to relieve that guilt. Their determination to make up for one crime blinds them to everything else they're doing."

My vision jumped from my dad over to the detective then, and I felt his quiet professionalism. He was feeling out my father's reaction, curious about just how he was going to react to this information.

Dad, meanwhile, let out a long, low breath, his voice growing louder with each passing word. "Let me see if I've got this. You think _Alan_ is behind that murder? That's absurd. Alan Barnes is a lot of things, but he wouldn't pay for someone to be killed! And even if he was the type, which he isn't, why the **hell** would he? That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard! I won't defend Alan Barnes against much at this point, but murder? You're wrong. He doesn't have any reason to do that, and he's not the type." "

"As I said," the detective replied in a quiet voice, "Guilt makes people do very crazy things. Things that they never would have even thought of before." He paused before adding, "In any case, we need to speak with him. Let us know if you hear from Alan at any point, would you?"

Dad was looking toward my body for a moment before finally meeting the man's gaze. "I will."

"Good," Detective Daley checked the gold watch on his wrist. "Unless there's something else you'd like to tell me, I've got another appointment with Mrs. Barnes in half an hour to discuss this same matter."

Dad promised to do so, and then the man was walking out of the house. I kept my vision with him as he strolled all the way to his car, a rather nice new sedan. He settled in and started driving, and I was about to focus on trying to pull my focus back toward my body when the radio cut out, interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone. The detective glanced toward the dashboard at the number that was displayed, then pressed a button on his steering wheel to accept the call. "You clean up that message?"

"I got most of it," a tired female voice replied. "You wanna hear it again? It's not that different from what you already had, except for a few more words. Nothing really changes."

"Let's hear it anyway," Daley replied. "You never know what might be important."

The woman agreed, and told him to hang on for a second. Then I heard the sound quality change. It was obvious that whatever we were listening to was in pretty bad shape.

"I did it. I want you to know I did it." The voice clearly belonged to Emma's father. He sounded shaken, more emotional than I'd ever heard him. It sounded like he was having a complete breakdown.

"I've done some bad things, stuff I'm not proud of, but this... oh my god. Oh, I really fucked up, Zoe. Fuck. Fuck I screwed up. God damn it! These people, the people I talked to, the guy I got to do it, he's crazy, Zoe. I—I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. I was trying to fix it. I was trying to make things better and just—everything's wrong. I gave them the money, I thought it would help but it just made things worse. I saw the news, what they showed. God, god, I can't believe what he did to her, what they did. I wanted to fix things, but not like this. I didn't think it'd be like this. When I saw what happened to her, her body... when I saw what those bastards did, what I paid them to do, I just... I just wasn't—I was wrong. But I don't know what to do. I swear, Zoe, I'm going to try to fix this. I'm going to try to put a stop to it. But you-"

His voice garbled up for a solid fifteen seconds before coming back with, "Emma, they'll leave her alone. I made that part of the deal. They won't touch Emma, they won't go near her. I promised to help them deal with-" The message garbled again, ending with a last, "-you so much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

And then I was back in my bedroom, my panoptic view showing my father and Payton both anxiously watching me. It was obvious that they were waiting for sign of life, but all I could do was lay there, stunned.

No wonder the police thought Emma's dad had something to do with the murder of Principal Blackwell. He was—that message or whatever it was, he had to be talking about her. Who else could he be talking about? He gave... somebody money to fix 'it' and then freaked out when he saw what happened to her on the news, when he saw her body. Now he was trying to do something to stop it.

Was that what really happened? Had Emma's father actually... paid someone to... no. No, he couldn't. That message had to be wrong, didn't it? It was a mistake. It had to be.

But even if it was, that still meant that someone was using my notebook, **my** evidence, to go after people, to _kill_ them. Principal Blackwell was already dead. Dead. She'd been killed because of what my notebook said, because of what I'd written. She was dead because of me.

I had to fix this.

Someway, somehow, I had to fix it.

Even if that meant coming face to face with the girls who had destroyed my life, so that I could save theirs.

 **10-02 – Sophia**

 _ **Sunday, May 1st**_

"You wanted to see me, Director Piggot?"

The woman in question looked up as I entered her office, but remained silent until I had positioned myself directly in front of her desk. Even then, she waited as though making it clear that I was there at her convenience, not the other way around. I walked mechanically and stood in place, feeling nothing even as some part of my brain recognized the power play. Like I cared. Like it mattered. It was dumb.

Finally, after making me stand there for almost a minute, Piggot closed the folder in her hand and laid it on the desk while speaking up. "I assume you heard the news that Principal Ruth Blackwell is dead."

In spite of myself, I blinked up, meeting the woman's gaze for the first time since I'd entered. "What?"

Her eyebrow raised. "You haven't heard? I'm surprised. It was reported fairly heavily on the news."

"I don't watch the news," I replied simply. "It's too depressing."

"It's too depressing, ma'am." She instructed pointedly with a gleam in her eyes. The gleam of power.

I didn't break eye contact, continuing to stare into hers without blinking. "It's too depressing... ma'am."

Yeah, it was bullshit. It was stupid. I knew what she was doing. But honestly, I didn't give a damn. She could play her games. I was just... done with it. I was done getting worked up over her petty shit.

"We believe that the person responsible for her murder was doing so in a misguided search for justice," Piggot finally continued while turning the folder around to face me. She opened it up then, using a finger to slide a photograph off of the top of the pile of papers. "This was written on the nearby wall."

Frowning uncertainly, I leaned closer, taking in the photograph. It was a place near the docks, I knew that much at first glance. There were a couple police officers in the shot, near one corner, and I could see some blood on the ground. And in the center of the photo was the brick wall with the painted message that Piggot had been referring to. Four words. A name and three more.

 _Taylor. Everyone responsible dies._

For a moment, I felt nothing. Which was weird. I really should have felt... what, anger? Denial, maybe? Instead, I just felt... empty. It felt like the reaction that I should have had was just missing, and there was nothing left to take its place. What? What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to think?

"Is it her?" It took me a second to realize that I was the one speaking. My voice was thick with something I didn't recognize. "Did she... trigger? Did Heb-" The name caught in my throat. No. Fuck. Say her fucking name. Say it out loud like a god damn human being, Sophia. "Did Taylor do this?"

"No, on both counts," Piggot replied. "Miss Hebert is still... unresponsive. As far as we can tell, she hasn't triggered and is not at all responsible for this current situation. We don't believe that a cape is responsible at all, as the body was... murdered by mundane means, from all accounts."

"Her dad." Somehow, I managed to speak the words, getting them out in spite of the lump in my throat.

"Neither responsible, nor condoned by Mr. Hebert," Piggot spoke with a firm shake of her head. "Some people still have morals, Miss Hess. I can't say that the man would exactly lose a lot of sleep if the people who tortured his child into a coma were to never be seen again, but he didn't do this."

I didn't respond. I couldn't. My mouth opened and then shut without anything coming out. Anything that came to mind, anything that I could say just felt... ugly. Wrong. What _**could**_ I say to that? What fucking words could come out of my mouth that would make what she'd said any less true?

Piggot frowned when I gave no response. Instead of pushing the issue, however, she moved on. "As I said, we believe the person responsible is an ordinary human. The police are pursuing specific leads."

"Police?" I finally managed to respond, blinking at her again. "As in the normal cops?"

"Yes, Miss Hess," Piggot's voice was hard. "As I said, if you had been paying attention, the killer was not a cape. As far as we know, they are not working for a cape either. That makes it a job for the police, not the PRT, and most **certainly** not the Protectorate. We are staying out of it and letting the proper investigators do their job. And when the detective in charge of the case wishes to speak with you, you will do so without exposing your identity to him. The PRT will provide adequate alibis for your time spent with us, of course. You will answer his questions and leave the investigation to the professionals. You will not pursue whoever this is. You will allow the police to do their job. Understood?"

Someone was killing the people who had let us get away with... with what happened to Taylor. I found myself staring at the graffiti in the photograph. The name. That name. Someone wanted all of us to pay.

"Miss Hess." Piggot spoke sharply, her tone annoyed. "I don't speak just to hear the sound of my own voice. I asked if you understand what I'm saying. You are not to interfere with the police investigation."

That empty feeling vanished, replaced by... fear. "Emma. Madison." I looked up. "What about them?"

Piggot paused, giving me a long look before nodding. "Okay. I suppose you deserve at least that much of an explanation. The police are taking steps, but they do not believe that Miss Barnes is in any true danger. Apparently the situation for Miss Clements is more complicated, but they're taking care of it."

The words made me double take. "What the he-" I caught myself. "What do you mean Emma isn't in danger? Why wouldn't she be in danger? She's the one that—we all just—she was Taylor's friend, all right? We all fucked her over, but it was personal for Emma. If someone's got it in for us, they've got it in for her especially. I'm one thing, I'm fucked up. But you can't just leave Emma and Madison out to-" I started in spite of myself, the fear a palpable thing.

Piggot let out a long sigh. "Stop. Just stop, Miss Hess. Be quiet. My opinion of all three of you girls aside, no one is being abandoned to be murdered. You're just going to have to trust me on that, and you are going to let the police do their job."

For a moment, she went silent, squinting at me as if deciding if she was actually going to say the next part before finally sighing. "The fact, Miss Hess, is that the police believe they already know who was responsible for this." Pursing her lips, she looked up at me and met my gaze. "Mr. Barnes."

"Emma's dad?!" I blurted in shock. "They think—you think he's responsible? That's why they don't think Emma's in danger. You guys think he snapped. What, guilt? You think guilt made him snap and just, what, start killing? What sense does that make?"

"The reasoning is not up for discussion." Piggot's voice was even sharper that time. "Let the police do their job, Miss Hess. Talk to the detective. Tell him anything he wants to know as long as it doesn't reveal your identity as Shadow Stalker. As far as the police are concerned, you are working off your debt to society by performing community service work, the same as Clements and Barnes. If you see Mr. Barnes, leave and use the emergency contact button on your phone. Do **not** attempt to talk him down or engage him on your own. That is not your job. Do you understand me?"

She was staring at me intently until I nodded. "Fine. Can I... go now?"

Whatever she or the police thought, I needed to check in on Emma and Madison. I had to make sure they were okay, that... that nothing happened to them. The thought of those two being killed for what we did, for what I... for what I made... it made me long for that empty feeling again.

I didn't think Piggot was going to answer at first. The woman was silent for awhile, just squinting at me as though trying to read my mind. Finally, she leaned back in her seat. "Yes," she said simply. "You can go."

Turning on my heel, I walked out of the room, physically stopping myself from sprinting. Emma's father? Her dad had—had killed—fuck. Fuck. Did Emma know? I took the phone from my pocket before making a face. Fuck, right. Emma still hadn't answered any of my texts for the past... fuck, how long had it been? She was ignoring me. That much had become obvious. Either that or she had changed phones for some reason.

I had to find her. I had to find both of them. Before something even worse happened.

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

"Fuck." My fist hit the heavy punching bag with a quick jab. "Fuck." The same fist struck the bag again with hardly a pause in between them. "Fuck." A third time, hard enough for me to feel the ache in my knuckles. Three lightning quick jabs in nearly the exact same spot, followed by a left hook as I raised my voice into a shout. "Fuck!" Finally, I spun all the away around to put my full weight and speed into the closed fist blow that struck the side of the bag while screaming, " _ **Fuck**_ **!** "

"What're you trying to do, get in your share of the cursing before Aisha uses them all up?"

The voice came from behind me, and I spun that way with a snarl of surprise, nearly slipping in the process before managing to catch myself against the bag. "Wha—shit! You-" Belatedly realizing who I was looking at, I shook my head. "Don't fucking do that, Muse. Don't sneak up on people."

"Sneak up?" Muse raised an eyebrow while leaning against the wall of the tunnel. We had made the far end of the tunnel, the spot nearest the cave-in that sealed the place off from the old ABB hideout, into a workout area. There was the heavy punching bag I was using, a speed bag, one of those old exercise bikes that had been broken until Bryce fixed it, and a set of dumbbells of varying sizes. All of it had been scavenged from the local junkyards and pawn shops, and paid for by Muse herself. I wasn't sure where she got the money, but I wasn't complaining either. Being able to work out in pretty much complete privacy was too much of a gift horse for me to shove my head down its throat.

"I didn't so much sneak up," the older girl went on with that casual tone, "as stomp my way down the tunnel about as loud as I could without causing another cave-in. You were, uhh, kind of busy."

"Busy. Yeah. What do you want? The bag?" I stepped aside from it. "Fine with me, I was done with it anyway." That said, I walked over to the latest completed part of our workout room: the metal pull-up bar that Bryce and I had welded into place across the width of the tunnel. Reaching up, I jumped to catch hold of the bar before hauling myself into a chin-up,

"Not exactly," Muse paused before crossing the space between us until she was only a couple feet away. She looked uncomfortable and uncertain. "I came down here to check on you, actually."

"Check on me?" I echoed, breathing in as I lowered myself down, then out as I pulled up again.

"You've been coming here pretty much every day, for hours, and just working out. Pushing yourself." Muse was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. It wasn't anger, disappointment, or shame, so fuck if I had a clue what it was. "The others haven't noticed, because it's always at a different time of day, and sometimes you don't stay long. But I did. I also noticed that you only leave when you're almost dead of exhaustion. Some days that takes three hours, other days it takes half an hour, but you've been pushing yourself to the breaking point _every single day._ You're killing yourself."

I almost laughed in her face by reflex. Fuck. Kill myself? No, if I wanted to do that, I'd just find Emma's dad, or whoever he'd gotten to kill Principal Blackwell, and tell him to do his worst.

I hadn't been able to find either Emma or Madison. Neither of them were living at home or anywhere that I could track down. _Madison_ at least had responded to my text about Blackwell, letting me know she was alive with a rather blunt, 'I'm okay. Not really a good time to talk about it.'

Emma, on the other hand, I only knew was alive because Piggot told me that the police had confirmed it. She had cut herself off completely from me. Madison, likewise, never said anything beyond those few words. Neither of them were the least bit interested in anything I had to say.

Not that I could really blame them at this point.

Still, Emma's dad? He'd really snapped and just... fuck. Piggot and the police were apparently sure of their suspect, even if I couldn't understand why. I'd been told in no uncertain terms by both Piggot and Armsmaster what would happen if I tried to interfere. The words juvenile detention were used no less than nine times.

So I gave the detective guy an interview, told him what I knew about the situation, and promised to call him if anything happened or if I saw or heard from Emma's dad.

As for my mother, well, she was concerned. Concerned enough to actually ask if I was in danger, which I just laughed off before leaving the room.

It wasn't the idea of some mundane human with a murder grudge against me that was funny. No, it was the idea that I had ever _not_ been in danger since becoming a cape that was fucking hilarious.

"I'm not killing myself," I replied darkly. "I wouldn't come here to do that."

Muse squinted at me, looking thoughtful for a moment. "You wanna talk about it?"

That time, I actually laughed, though it was humorless. I hauled myself through a couple more reps on the bar before replying, "I would rather face all three Endbringers at once while armed with just a slingshot than talk about it."

"Well, maybe you should." Muse had her arms folded over her chest as she stared up at me. "Something's eating you up, Sophia. Something's just... fucking with your head. I can see it. You're-"

"I'm not gonna talk about it," I spat back at her before releasing the bar to drop down. Then I sighed. "Not right now, okay? I... can't. It's a jumble and it's really fucked up and just... I can't. Trust me, you don't wanna hear any of this shit that's in my head."

"If you change your mind," she replied quietly, "I'm here, and I'm told that I'm easy to talk to."

My head started to shake dismissively before I stopped. "Wait, actually, I did want to say something."

She waited expectantly, but I couldn't figure out how to say what was in my head. "Look, just... this is stupid, okay? But if something happens to me, if I get... I don't know, if I have to go away, or if some shit happens and I can't be here..."

Muse's eyebrows went up. "You think you won't be able to be here?"

"I don't know." I scowled. This wasn't going the way I wanted. "Just—fuck, just if something happens, you've gotta take care of those two. Don't just, like, abandon them. Got it? You stick with them. If I'm not here, they need someone to watch over them."

"They might be better off if I wasn't around," Muse replied while flinching away from me.

"They won't be," I shot back as firmly as I could. "Just... just trust me, okay? They're both sort of fucked up. It's a fucked up I understand. I get it. I know it. If they don't get help, they'll get worse. They need a guide. They don't get one, if they get left out with just themselves... bad shit will happen. Really bad shit. If I can't be here to help, you have to promise you will be. Got it?"

The two of us met each other's gazes for a long few seconds before Muse nodded. "I got it. I promise."

We'd barely looked away from each other then before the sound of footsteps drew our attention that way. Bryce came jogging down the tunnel. "Guys! We've got a ping on one of the Scouter Gnomes!"

"A real ping, or just some homeless guys again?" I asked. "And which one?"

We had placed some of Bryce's security gnomes, upgraded with better surveillance capability, near the entrances to several of the locations that Foil had provided as potential holding places for her sister. According to her info, Lung moved his prisoners around a lot, so we'd been waiting for one of the spots we knew about to be used. If this was true, it would be the first time we'd gotten a decent hit off them.

"Real ping, trust me. I checked the camera." Bryce was practically bouncing up and down. "There's definitely gang bangers in there. They're moving some stuff in. I couldn't tell what it was, but there were a lot of trucks. So hurry up! We already lost our chance at most of those Empire **fucks** , I'm not gonna sit around and lose out on paying back the ABB too."

"Guess we better check it out," I agreed while tugging the bottom of my shirt up to wipe over my sweat-soaked face. Not that it did much, since the fabric itself was just as wet.

Bryce had stopped talking. He was just staring in the direction of my stomach, mouth open in a sort of gape.

Rolling my eyes, I yanked the sweaty shirt all the way off and tossed it aside pointedly. "I'm still wearing a sports bra, kid. You **do** have the internet, right? Pick your jaw up off the damn floor and focus." That said, I bent down to grab a clean shirt out of the backpack that I had brought with me. "Which spot was it?"

Still, annoyingly, it took Bryce a couple of seconds to answer. "Um. Uh. Oh, uh, the one with the, you know, that spot in the umm, they have, umm, sleep. You sleep on them."

I squinted that way while pulling the shirt on. "Mattress store? You're talking about the old mattress store?"

The kid's head bobbed up and down a few times. "Uh huh. That one."

"Right then." For her part, Muse sure sounded pretty god damn amused. "You sure my suit's ready?"

 **That** was finally enough to snap Bryce out of it, mostly. "Oh, yeah. Damn straight it's ready. You're gonna kick ass. C'mon, I'll show you."

As we walked down the tunnel back toward Bryce's workshop area, I asked, "Where's Aisha?"

My answer came a second later. As we reached the open area, I found myself staring at no less than twenty imps of various materials. They had arranged themselves into an assortment of letters by standing on each other's shoulders, grabbing onto one another, and spreading out until they had created a four foot tall word directly in our path.

"Cock?" I raised an eyebrow. "Really? This is your idea of practicing with your power, huh?"

A cackle filled the room as Aisha jumped into view from behind the collection of imps. "Pay up! Pay up, pay up, pay up."

"That is not fair," Bryce complained, even as he dug into his pocket and came out with a ten dollar bill, which he reluctantly passed over to her. "Cheating."

"Hey, I said I could get one of them to say it," Aisha shot back. "You never specified how."

Rolling my eyes hard, I cuffed Bryce upside the head. "Focus. Don't you have a suit to be handing over?"

"Hells yeah, I do." Bryce practically skipped over to the spot of the room where only he and Muse had been allowed to go for the last few days. "Here we go. I fixed all the problems that popped up during those practice sessions, which meant uhh, basically rebuilding it from the ground up a couple times. But it all works the way it did before." He swept the sheet off the store mannequin that he had propped up, revealing what was basically a gleaming silver bodysuit with white armor in key locations. The mask was a helmet that looked like the one that was in that old _Rocketeer_ movie, only silver to match the suit itself.

"Try it on," the boy urged eagerly. "I swear all the bugs are worked out this time. I quadruple checked, and I had Eesh stick a pile of imps on board and take them up high just to make sure there weren't any problems. We've got it."

"All right, give me a minute then." Muse shook her head while gathering up the costume, then took it around the corner to change.

She was back before long, fully decked out in the bodysuit and armor, with the helmet held under one arm. "Kind of tight," she remarked.

Utterly failing to look innocent in any conceivable way, Bryce shrugged. "It'll stretch. Anyway, try the gloves. I had to fix the overheating problem, but I tried to make sure they still look like ordinary gloves as much as possible. Since, you know, we want people to think that you're the one making it happen, not your equipment."

Nodding, Muse held one hand out. "Okay, here goes." Her thumb twitched slightly, and a steady stream of white smoke emerged from her palm.

After she duplicated the action with the other glove, we had a thick cloud of white smoke in the room. Aisha coughed a few times. "Use the helmet already, jeeze!"

Muse did so, pulling the helmet onto her head. There was a momentary pause before the cloud of smoke pulled away, coalescing into a single spot in the corner. As we watched, the simple cloud reformed itself into the shape of a question mark, then a sword, and finally a hand giving a thumbs up.

"Helmet controlling the shape of the smoke, check." Bryce was grinning even harder. "Okay... You see the heads up display inside your helmet? Just look at any of the smoke you've made and it'll highlight it so you can... you know. Go ahead, try it."

With a nod, Muse directed the cloud of smoke over near her feet. It hung there, forming itself into the shape of a carpet hovering a little bit off the floor. She took a breath, then carefully stepped up onto it.

Not through it, onto it. Her feet settled into the smoke and stayed there. She was standing on the hovering cloud.

"Yes!" Bryce punched the air. "I told you I could make it all work together! The density control will only affect the smoke you've got selected with your heads-up display. So you can ride your cloud in, spray out more smoke to blind one group, then spray out more smoke, shape it into a hammer and solidify _that_ smoke to bash someone's face in! Or surround someone with the cloud form and then make it hard to trap them. I mean, it won't hold super strong people or anything. They can break it. But most people are fucking screwed, man."

"You did good, kid," I told him. Which was a bad idea, since he'd be bragging about it pretty much forever. But whatever, he **had** done a good job. Especially if it held together.

"You figure out what you're gonna call yourself yet?" Aisha asked quietly. I'd noticed that she was always a bit more subdued whenever Muse practiced with the white smoke-creation, though I wasn't sure why. Maybe she had a thing about fog?

"Yeah," Muse looked toward the two of us. "I've got the perfect name. Cloudkicker."

I snorted at that. "Cloudkicker?"

"Just trust me," she replied. "If you were into watching old cartoons, you'd love it."

"Cloudkicker it is then," I waved a hand acceptingly. "Anything else we should know about, Bryce?"

"It's Churchill while we're on mission," he reminded me. "But uhh, nope. Can't think of anything. You guys should be good to go. Your comms and cameras are all patched through back here so I'll keep track of what's going on."

"Right," I found myself smiling even as I started to the side of the room where my own Hinder costume was.

"Then let's go kick some ABB A-S-S."

 **10-03 – Madison**

 _ **Wednesday, May 4th**_

"And when was the last time you happened to see Taylor Hebert, Miss Clements?"

Sitting on the Dallon's living room couch, I flinched at Detective Daley's question, forcing myself not to instinctively look toward Mrs. Dallon. Instead, I raised my gaze from the floor to the man himself.

It was only the three of us here in the house at the moment, Victoria and Amy having been banished next door and ordered not to eavesdrop while Mr. Dallon was at an appointment with his psychiatrist.

Meeting the gaze of the man in the rumpled suit, I answered. "The last time I saw Taylor in person was when they were taking her out of the locker... the locker that we shoved her into." My voice shook somewhat at the last bit, but I forced myself to keep it under control. "I saw video and pictures of her later, when they were—at the hearing with the judge. But I—umm, I haven't seen **her** since the locker."

The man scribbled something into the simple notepad that he had pulled from an inside pocket. "What about Mr. Barnes, Emma's father. When was the last time that you saw or even heard from him?"

"Mr. Barnes?" I echoed blankly. "I think it was the day of the hearing, when he and Emma threw Taylor under the bus." I still couldn't keep the anger out of my voice entirely then. Emma and I had had a _deal_ , we had agreed that we deserved to be punished, that we had to pay for what we did. Then just one day later, and her daddy was getting her off with what barely qualified as a swat on the wrist.

Another note was made in the pad before the man leaned back to study me. "You don't sound very happy about your situation. I would think that avoiding juvenile detention would make you grateful."

My head shook firmly. "I turned myself in for a reason. We deserved to be punished. We—we deserved worse than what happened, a lot worse. The things we did, the stuff that..." I blanched and looked away in spite of myself, feeling sick in my stomach while finishing with a simple, "We should be locked up."

Mrs. Dallon spoke up then. "How much actual danger do you think Madison is in, Detective?"

He glanced to her, and I saw his curiosity. The man clearly wanted to know what the actual connection between my family and the Dallons was. With help from one of the Brigade's contacts in the courthouse and Brandish's own legal expertise, we had faked up a contract that made the Dallons my legal custodians and caretakers while my parents were... incapable. I'd even gotten my parents to sign the pre-dated record, which... honestly had made me feel even worse than visiting them already made me. Neither of them were in any condition to make legal decisions, and I was tricking them into signing legal documents. But it couldn't be helped. I **had** to stay with the Brigade, and I comforted myself with the thought that if they knew everything and were capable of making the decision, they would agree.

Yeah, it was probably a pretty weak justification. But I had to tell myself something. Besides, eventually Mom and Dad would recover and I'd have to find a way to explain what had happened. Not just with me and the Dallons, but with... Trevor as well. Trevor, whom I hadn't seen since the barn.

Detective Daley was responding, and I forced myself to shake those thoughts out of my head so I could listen. "Whether the person responsible for Ruth Blackwell's death was Mr. Barnes, an associate hired by him, or an entirely unrelated party, the fact remains that a woman has already been murdered, and a direct threat was made against everyone responsible for Miss Hebert's condition. Unfortunately, that includes Miss Clements here. It's a threat that should absolutely be taken seriously. Until we have this situation under control, I strongly suggest that Miss Clements not go anywhere by herself. Stay where it's safe, don't go wandering at night, keep your phone close at hand, and report **any** suspicious activity. Do _**not**_ dismiss anything that stands out. If you need a squad car to swing by, just ask. There's no such thing as being too careful in this situation, Mrs. Dallon. Does your house have an alarm system?"

The blonde woman gave a short nod, her expression serious as she replied. "Yes. I assure you, Detective, we won't let anything happen to Madison. She'll be safe with us."

For a moment, Detective Daley looked thoughtful. He tapped the index finger of one hand against the knuckles of his other several times indecisively before reaching into his pocket. "I'm going to give you something, Miss Clements." He extended his hand then, with something small and metal in his palm.

I took it, blinking down at what turned out to be one of those tiny flashlights that go on a keychain.

"The police department was provided with a limited number of these by Armsmaster," Daley explained. When my gaze snapped up, he smiled a little bit. "Don't worry, it's not a laser or anything. Most of the time, it's just a normal flashlight. Put it with your keys. When you want the light, press the button and hold it for as long as you need. But, if you get into _any_ kind of trouble, if you need the police and calling 911 isn't an option, just press the button four times rapidly. Press and let go, press and let go, press and let go, press and let go. That will send an immediate alert and squad cars will be dispatched to your location, tracking the GPS in the keychain." His stare met mine. "It is not a toy."

Swallowing uneasily, I nodded. "Not a toy, got it. I'll be careful, sir, I promise."

There was more talking, more questions, but I couldn't really focus on much of it, answering mechanically whenever I was addressed. Most of my attention was taken up with one thing: guilt.

Principal Blackwell was dead. She had been murdered because of what Sophia, Emma, and I did. Because of us, because of our... evil, someone out there was taking revenge and killing people.

Who was it? I shuddered and squirmed in my seat. Could Mr. Barnes really be responsible? I had loathed the man since that moment in the PRT building when he had shut everything down, but was he really so far gone that he'd do something like this? And what about Emma? I may have been angry with her for chickening out of facing our punishment, but this was far beyond anything she'd ever do.

Eventually, the interview was over and Detective Daley promised to keep in touch and let us know how the investigation was going. Then he was gone, leaving just me and Mrs. Dallon sitting there.

I couldn't bring myself to look at the woman. My gaze was fixed on the floor. They didn't need this. The Brigade had so many problems to handle already. Donny's death, Crystal's obvious issues after everything she'd gone through while imprisoned by the Empire, and Mr. Dallon's deteriorating mental state as his clinical depression continued to get worse in the wake of the farm battle. The _last_ thing they had needed was to find out that their newest member had so much baggage, that I had been... like that.

Eventually, the front door opened and Mrs. Pelham stepped in. She paused to look toward me, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Dallon stood up and beckoned. The two of them moved to the kitchen, where I could hear the murmur of their conversation. It didn't sound like a pleasant one.

After a few minutes of that, both women emerged. Mrs. Dallon stood nearby, while Mrs. Pelham took a seat on the couch next to me. "Madison," she spoke softly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I closed my eyes, unable to resist the shudder that ran through me. "I... don't know what to say. I'm sorry. I know you don't—you shouldn't have to deal with this after everything-" Stopping myself from rambling, I settled on a simple, "If you don't want me to be a part of the team anymore, I underst-"

"Stop," Mrs. Pelham interrupted. Her hand found my shoulder. "Madison, no one is going to kick you off the team. You made a mistake—okay, series of mistakes. You did some bad things, awful things. But if you didn't feel _truly_ sorry for them, if you hadn't already been horrified by what you caused, you wouldn't have triggered. You tried to turn yourself in, you _attempted_ to do the right thing. And since then, you've been fighting to protect people, to help them. Maybe you're not perfect, but no one is."

"But you guys have so many problems to deal with already," I protested. "You shouldn't have to-"

"We don't have to," Mrs. Dallon interrupted from where she was standing. "We choose to."

Nodding in agreement, Mrs. Pelham moved her hand from my shoulder to my arm, squeezing. "You are a part of this team, Madison. That means we don't abandon you as soon as problems pop up. I won't lie and say I'm not disgusted by what you did. I won't pretend hearing about what you helped put that poor girl through doesn't horrify me. You were awful. But you already _know_ that, and you've been working to change it. I'm not going to take that chance away from you by kicking you off the team."

I was quiet for a few seconds. Anything I wanted to say kept getting choked up in my throat. "My brother..." I had already told them about recognizing Trevor as the person who had stolen the bomb.

"We'll help you find him too," Mrs. Dallon promised. "I've got some questions for him, especially if he was telling the truth about being connected to Coil. We may not know what that bomb they made Crystal contribute to does, exactly, but that **snake** definitely shouldn't have it."

"But for now," Mrs. Pelham pulled us back on topic, "we should talk about what happened between you, Taylor, and these other girls. Can you tell us what exactly made you want to torture this girl?"

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

I still hadn't come up with a very satisfactory answer by the next morning. The question wouldn't go away. Why _had_ I been so obsessed with keeping Sophia and Emma's approval? I didn't know Taylor personally, we'd never even interacted before I joined in with the bullying campaign. Why had I let it get that bad? Was that just the kind of person I was, the kind of monster I was capable of being. Or was there something else behind it, something I couldn't understand? It felt like I was close, so close to understanding something about myself, about what had happened. But it kept slipping away.

From his spot beside me at the Pelham's kitchen table, Eric spoke up. "How's your Dad doing, Vic?"

Victoria let out a long sigh while taking a bite of her own cereal. "Not good," she answered in a quiet, subdued voice. "Mom wants him to take a sabbatical from the team while he gets his head on straight."

Amy, who was standing over by the fridge drinking a glass of juice, spoke up then. "Mom thinks Crystal should take a break too, but she keeps refusing. I think they were arguing about it last-" She stopped talking as the kitchen door swung open, admitting the subject of her sentence.

Crystal stood there in the doorway, eyes moving over each of us before she stepped inside. There were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep, but she still seemed hyper alert. Nightmares, I knew from Amy and Eric. She was fine during the day, but they had both heard her thrashing and crying out in the middle of the night. Apparently she hadn't slept more than a few hours a night since her rescue.

She also wasn't blonde anymore. A few days earlier, Crystal had dyed her hair a shockingly bright pink. When asked about it, she'd just said that the creeps from the Empire had constantly called her 'Blondie', and she didn't want to be reminded of that anymore. She couldn't look at herself in the mirror without remembering their taunts. Apparently Eric was going to give her his spare hair color changer that he'd received from his tinker friend so that she could go out as Laserdream without exposing her identity.

Even then, I couldn't help but notice how pretty the pink hair looked on her. It really worked.

"You guys know that door isn't soundproof, right?" Crystal remarked while putting an English Muffin in the toaster. "I already know you were talking about me." Turning, she added, "And I know Mom and Aunt Carol think I need a break. I don't. I need to do something constructive, not sit around and mope."

Vicky was nodding emphatically. "Yeah!" She grinned, popping out of her seat to embrace her cousin firmly, pulling the other girl into a hug. "I knew you'd be okay. You just need to kick some bad guy butt and put those creeps behind bars where they belong."

I saw the way Crystal stiffened at first when she was hugged before forcing herself to relax. She gave Victoria a hesitant pat on the shoulder. "What about Aunt Becca? She's the one I'm worried about."

"Mom wanted her to stay home again," Eric answered. "But she went to work anyway. She said she couldn't just abandon her students, and that focusing on a lesson would be good for her."

Crystal nodded while taking that in before turning her attention toward me. I couldn't help but shrink a little under her attention, knowing that her capture was my fault. "You need a ride to school, right?"

Vicky's eyes rolled then before she gave a long, heavy sigh that made her rather bountiful chest heave in a way that was strangely distracting. "I still don't see why they're dragging their feet so much with letting her come to _our_ school. Mom's calling in every favor she knows to make it happen, but they're being so damn slow."

It was Amy who answered before I could. "It's because of that Sophia girl, remember? They were all split up after what happened and she's the one that ended up at Arcadia. They probably don't want the two of them going to the same school again."

Still huffing at that, Vicky retorted, "I don't see why they let _her_ go to Arcadia instead."

I did. That was where the Wards went. Most people suspected as much, and it had been confirmed to me as soon as our split had ended with Sophia being sent there while Emma went to Clarendon and I was left at Winslow. But telling _them_ that would have been a pretty big violation of the rules as Mrs. Pelham had explained them when I privately confided the whole truth about Sophia with her and Mrs. Dallon. So I kept it to myself, even though the idea of protecting Sophia in any way made me feel ill.

Besides, if we had to interact with the Wards again, I didn't really believe that a Victoria who knew the truth would be able to keep it to herself, and that was a really good way to let Sophia know who **I** was.

Speaking of Sophia, I still couldn't believe she'd been bombarding my phone with so many messages to find out if I was all right after Principal Blackwell's murder. I'd finally felt just guilty enough to send her a message that I was okay, but that was it. I didn't want to talk to her. I didn't even want to _think_ about her.

"I'll take you," Crystal informed me. "I need to get out of this house anyway. It's just... I need to go out."

Hesitating, I glanced to the others before lamely replying, "You don't have to. I could just take the bus or-"

"No, you can't," Crystal interrupted flatly, plucking both halves of her English Muffin out and dropping them on a waiting plate before starting to spread butter on them. "You aren't going anywhere by yourself, remember? Not until they catch whoever killed Blackwell.

"Just finish eating and I'll drop you off. It's no big deal."

"So that's my whole story," I finished a few hours later. "That's why there's someone out there killing people, trying to kill _me_ , to punish us for what we did to that girl."

Sitting a couple feet away from me on the bleachers that overlooked the track, Cassie took a bite of the sandwich she'd brought to school. "Fuck, dude. That's some heavy shit."

Iron Rain and Purity had apparently both insisted that Cassie go to an actual high school. She had chosen to come to Winslow. Which was probably one of the only times **that** had ever happened. I wondered if the office even had a _form_ for someone willingly choosing this school over other possibilities.

She had also tested herself out of freshman year to join me as a sophomore. I was pretty sure she could have tested herself even higher, but she wanted to stay where I was.

Nodding a little, I bit into my own sandwich while looking down at the empty track. No one was out here at the moment. In the distance, I could see a couple students running around on the baseball field, but most were either in class or at the cafeteria. Or they'd gone off campus to eat. We had the bleachers to ourselves. Which was exactly what I'd wanted: privacy.

"Really heavy," I agreed. "It's also why I'm not supposed to run off by myself. Even to do stuff like come over to your place." Sighing, I picked up a pebble and threw it off the bleachers. "I just wish I could answer their questions. Their _real_ questions. Brandish and Lady Photon want to know why I did what I did, what made me act that way. They want to know why I wanted Emma and Sophia's approval. I wish I knew."

Cassie snorted and shook her head. "Yeah, right. After those pictures you showed me on your phone of them, I think we both know why you wanted their approval."

I blinked, looking at her. "Huh?"

"You know," the blonde girl prompted with a wave of her hand. "Because they're both like, attractive and shit. Hell, I'm a Na—former Nazi and even I noticed that."

"Uhhhh huh?" I was still staring at her uncertainly. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Oh come on, you do not have to hide it from me. I know, the whole Nazi thing and all that, but I haven't murdered Rain yet, so..." Cassie trailed off, staring at me. "You have no idea what I'm talking about. Are you serious?"

"Serious about what?" I shook my head slowly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Ooooh boy," Cassie groaned, hanging her head. "This is not a conversation you should be having with me. How the hell do you not notice how much you smicker at those girls?"

Now she had _really_ lost me. "How much I what, now? Throw jam at them?"

"That's Smucker's," she shot back. "Smicker means to ogle someone, you know, staring at them amorously."

"Ogle them? But you said—I thought you were talking about- and we were..." I trailed off, staring at her in open confusion. A whisper that had been in the back of my head for months now was trying to shout, screaming to get my attention.

"Shit, fuck, damn it," Cassie turned on the bench. "I'm the wrong fucking person for this. You need to talk to Iron Rain or something, I don't—she **said** she talked to you about this already! She said you thought Laserdream was—you know..."

"A hero?" I echoed. "I talked to her about how Laserdream is the biggest hero I know, and she is."

"Not a hero!" Cassie blurted. "God damn it, look at me. Look at me. Gay. Shut up, don't say a word. Gay, gay, gay, gay gay. Girls. You fucking like girls, Captain Oblivious. You're so fucking gay you probably bleed rainbows. When the doctor puts his stethoscope on your heart, he hears Judy Garland singing about blue birds and dreams! If your eyes spent any more time practically attached to my ass when we're walking around, they could apply for common law marriage. When your Karate teacher said you were going to learn how to scissor kick, you spent the whole time trying to figure out how two girls were supposed to swing themselves around in that position. If you drooled any more whenever Seraph bends over so you can see her cleavage, the city would have a brand new lake. Gay, gay, gay, gay, fucking gay. You are so god damn gay!"

"I..." My mouth opened and then shut as realization dawned. Thoughts that I'd had. Things that hadn't made sense. Ideas and images that just wouldn't go away. Stuff that I had shut aside. All the times that I had noticed how attractive Victoria, Crystal, Cassie, and all the others were, all of it. The things I'd somehow blocked myself from realizing. It all rushed back to me at once, clubbing me over the head with the obviousness of it. As well as the implications. "Oh... oh god. I-I think you're right."

"Of course I'm right," Cassie scoffed at me. "It's pretty—wait, hey. Hey stop it, are you okay? Are you... are you... like, crying? What the hell? I'm not abandoning your or whatever. I figured it out awhile ago. I told you, I can deal with it, just like I deal with Rain."

My head shook, but no words came out for a moment. I slowly lifted my hands to cover my face, sinking in the bench as my shoulders heaved. No, no, no. It couldn't be that. Please, please. I didn't want to know. I didn't want it. I didn't want this. Wrong, wrong, it was wrong. It had to be wrong.

It wasn't. That was why I tortured Taylor. This was why I wanted Emma and Sophia to like me. It was why everything had happened, why I'd become that person.

"I'm sorry," I whispered the futile, worthless words against my hands, feeling my own tears soak into my skin in spite of every attempt I made to hold it together. "I'm sorry. Oh my god.

"Taylor, I am so sorry."

 **10-04 – Emma**

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

I'm sure there's a more humbling job in the world than cleaning up after a bunch of sick people in a hospital, but I'd be fairly hard-pressed to actually name one right off the tip of my tongue.

A few months ago, the idea of spending several hours of an afternoon mopping up puke, cleaning bedpans, and doing the laundry for people who got every kind of bodily fluid imaginable on them would have sounded like hell on Earth. Now, it was just another day of my well-deserved probation.

"You about done for the day, Bunny?" The nurse who was my supervisor here stood at the doorway of the restroom where I had been hard at work scrubbing my hands. She had already changed out of her scrubs and into normal clothes, and was jingling her keys in one hand. "I'll give you a lift."

Seriously, what was it about me that made people want to name me after small woodland creatures? Woody, Squirrel, and now Bunny.

I shook my head at that while grabbing a paper towel out of the dispenser. "No thanks, Paula. I've already got a ride." After wiping my hands on the towel, I crumpled it up and tossed it into the garbage.

The woman looked worried for a moment, brow creasing with obvious concern. "You sure you'll be okay, sweetie? I could take you wherever you need to go, it's really no trouble at all."

I knew what she was worried about. The police had stopped by the hospital a couple days earlier to talk to me about what had happened to Principal Blackwell, and the connection they thought it had to my dad. My father, the man they thought either killed that poor woman, or paid for it to be done.

Could he have? I wanted to say no. Actually, I wanted to scream it, **had** almost screamed it in the face of Detective Daley when he'd told me about that my father was their primary suspect and explained their little theory. I'd wanted to kick the table over and scream at the man that my family weren't murderers. We had plenty of problems, sure, but we didn't go around hiring assassins, for fuck's sake.

But just how well did I know my father and what he was capable of? After that day in the alley, I had changed so much. I had basically tortured my old best friend into a coma. So who the fuck was I to say how much my Dad had been changed by it and what he was capable of? I didn't _want_ him to be, I wanted to believe that he'd never, ever do it. But could I say it with one hundred percent certainty?

At **first** the detective hadn't wanted to talk to me at all without a parent or guardian present. But I showed him the paper that the PRT had pushed through that gave Anne legal custody of me, and let him talk to her over the phone. Apparently Armsmaster had given Anne some kind of voice synthesizer that allowed her to at least _sound_ normal. She gave him permission to talk to me, explaining that she was 'out of town.' I wasn't sure he completely bought the explanation for why he couldn't see her in person, but the man had at least let it go. I think he was more interested in finding out what I knew.

After questioning me for about an hour, the detective had left me with both a warning to let the police know if I saw my father or any strangers, and some kind of flashlight key fob with an emergency SOS signal attached to it. Apparently it was made by Armsmaster, and I'd wondered for a moment what the man himself would think if he knew that his tools were being handed out to someone like me.

And Madison. She was back in town. According to the brief call we'd exchanged, she had actually been just fine that whole time. A friend of the family had scooped her up as soon as her parents went missing and had her stay with them, and she'd lost her phone in the rush. After that, she'd just been so worried about her mom and dad that checking her e-mail or anything like that hadn't even occurred to her. Now that they were safe (well, in the hospital, but safe enough relatively speaking), she was communicating.

Once my meeting with the detective had ended, I'd been left to cope with the news that an innocent woman, my old principal, had been murdered because of something that I was responsible for. **Whoever** was behind it, the situation wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for me. Ruth Blackwell would be alive if I hadn't been an evil bitch.

It was... hard, to say the least. I actually ended up going to the woman's funeral, the guilt driving me to stand there and watch as she was buried. Dead. She was dead because of me. And as much as that hurt, as much as it made me want to curl into a ball and suffer, I couldn't. That was the easy way out. It was easy to give up, to fall over and just succumb to the sick feeling in my stomach. That awful guilty feeling that tried to eat me alive, the grief that came every time I let myself focus on what had happened to that poor woman and what she had gone through was enough to bury me completely.

But I pushed on. I made myself accept that guilt. I let it punch me in the gut whenever it took the swing, and then I got up again. Because if I was going to make the guilt _matter,_ I had to actually do something about it. I had to find out who was responsible for it and make them stop, no matter what.

I wasn't suicidal. I didn't want to die. The shit I'd done, the awful, evil little bitch that I had been definitely deserved to be punished. But not this. I didn't deserve to die, and neither had the people who either let it happen or participated. Madison didn't deserve it. Not even Sophia. If I was being completely honest with myself some part of me _still_ missed being friends with them. A lot of the stuff we'd done together didn't have anything to do with Taylor. It was just... fun. I missed it, and pretending like I didn't wasn't going to help anything.

Regardless, neither of them, or any of those other people, deserved to be murdered by some psychopath who was using what happened to Taylor as some kind of excuse to kill and pretend it was justified.

But most of all, Taylor didn't deserve to have innocent people tortured and murdered in her name. Even if I never managed to actually do anything else for her, even if I never even talked to her again, I could fix that much. I could make this sick fuck stop tarnishing her name. No matter what that took.

First, however, I'd had to talk Anne out of locking me up in a bunker after that little discussion with the detective, which hadn't been easy. She was pretty understandably freaked out, and wanted me to come stay in the Protectorate building until everything was sorted out, until they found whoever was responsible. Only my showing her the emergency alert key fob and promising to check in every few hours to let her know I was okay had staved off that particular problem. Anne was still worried, but I made her understand that since I could call her in at any time, and _she_ could call in the Protectorate themselves, I was actually safer than almost anyone else would be in my position.

I left out the added fact that anyone trying to get me would have to somehow do so when I could stop time at the drop of a hat and remove myself from any situation they tried to trap me in.

So now I only had to deal with all the nurses and teachers who knew something was going on and kept trying to help. "Really," I assured Paula. "I'm meeting up with some friends. It's fine, I promise."

She still looked reluctant, but nodded. "All right, Bunny, but if you need anything, anything at all-"

"I've got your cell number," I confirmed. "And your home number, and your e-mail, and I think your mother's phone number. Seriously, Paula, I think you even tried to give me your dentist's number."

The woman waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, I just want you to be safe. You be careful now."

Promising I would be, I passed the woman and headed down the hall for the exit to the parking garage. I could feel the eyes of the other nurses and a couple doctors on me, a couple of them starting to ask if I needed anything or wanted a ride. Clearly the visit from Detective Daley had made the gossip rounds.

As soon as I was out of sight of prying eyes (and prying cameras), I stopped and looked around. Once I was satisfied, I focused on my power, drawing the red tint over the world before jogging through the door and into the garage. Holding my breath, I jogged through the lot, up the exit ramp, and managed to make it all the way to the alley across the street before I _had_ to let time go back to normal so I could breathe. I was definitely getting better at that whole holding my breath thing.

After reaching the alley and starting time up again, I took a burner phone that Lisa had provided from my pocket and punched in the first saved number before holding it up to my ear. The phone rang about three times before the girl herself answered. "You all done at the hospital?"

"Yup," I confirmed. "You guys ready? Are the others already there?"

"Yeah, we're all here. You sure we're ready for this? Because this is pretty much the last chance to back out." Lisa sounded almost hopeful that I would change my mind at the last second.

I knew she was worried. We were supposed to meet this secretive boss of hers today, and Lisa thought it was a bad idea. She had stressed repeatedly how much the man preferred his privacy, but I held firm. We needed to know who we were working with if this situation was going to continue. It had taken a few days, but she'd arranged a meeting, arguing the whole time that we should just leave it alone.

Maybe I would eventually wish that I'd listened to her. But for the moment, every instinct I had was telling me that we should know who we were working for. Or, failing that, at least get to talk to the man face to face. Running all of his requests or demands through Tattletale was getting pretty old.

"It's okay," I promised. "We'll just meet the man, talk a bit so we're all on the same page, and get out."

And if I didn't like what I saw, if working with this guy was as bad of an idea as Lisa's reactions were starting to make me think it was, well then we'd just have to come to a new arrangement.

"Ahem. 'A month ago, the Undersiders were circling the drain. Nobody cared who they were, and most assumed that they'd split up and be absorbed by the other gangs in the city, or just end up in prison. They were a bunch of nobodies with barely a single decent job under their belts. Now they're all anyone's talking about in the Brockton Bay forums. Why? What made the difference? One thing in particular. They dumped their old leader for a newer, hotter, younger model.'"

"Stop," I groaned, putting my head in my hands. "Please stop, god. Where do you find this stuff?"

Alec, who had been reading the comment off of his phone, shrugged at me. All of us, the whole team, were in costume, sitting in a van that had been sent by the boss to drive us out to the meeting. The van was pretty big, but Rachel had brought two of her dogs, who were taking up most of the extra room.

"It's from a thread on PHO," Alec replied, "but it's not exactly a hard-to-find sentiment, Squirrel. Like here, random news story about that train thing. Find the comments and... 'Jeeze, switching out boring old Grue for sexy Redshift really turned the Undersiders around, didn't it? Good move, guys.'"

Flinging my hands up in the cramped space of the van, I demanded, "How do they know I'm sexy? Who the hell has even seen me to make that judgment besides a couple radio deejays?"

From where she was sitting, Tyler snickered easily. "Turns out they had cameras in the radio station, sweetness. Those shock jocks put out a bunch of pictures of you showing up to make your big declaration and they've made the rounds."

"But, but, but..." I shook my head. "I'm wearing a full body costume! It's not even a very _good_ costume, for Scion's sake!" I was still wearing the same red pants and running shoes, black shirt with the red starburst pattern on it, and the simple ski mask with the red lenses built into the eyes. I'd spent a very long time cultivating my appearance at school and for my modeling jobs. I knew I _could_ look pretty damn hot. But I wasn't **trying** in this case. "I'm not doing or wearing anything special, so what the hell are they babbling about?

"Speaking for one of the babblers," Alec cut in with a raised hand. "You could probably make a paper bag look good. Actually-"

"I am not going to try to make a paper bag look good," I cut him off.

While he pretended to sulk, Tyler shrugged at me. "You do look good. And now, like it or not, you're the new face of the Undersiders."

I groaned again before sitting back against the seat. It figured. After years of trying to make a real modeling career take off and get discovered, the city decided to become obsessed with me when I didn't care anymore. There was probably some kind of word for that. Besides annoying, I meant.

Looking toward Theo, who was sitting across from me, I asked, "You wanna be the new face?"

He was shaking his head when Tyler spoke up. "He might as well be, considering half of PHO is pretty damn convinced that you two are already a couple."

I promptly choked, staring across the van at her. The exposed lower half of her face left her smirk in plain sight. "Excuse me? Why the hell would they think that? We haven't even—they don't—why?"

It was Tattletale who answered. "Never underestimate an internet forum's capacity for relationship rumors. The world wide web is a uniting force, and in this case, what it united was all the teenage girls, gossiping housewives, and guys who secretly like to listen in to that stuff but always felt like they weren't allowed to."

"We should let Judas be the new face of the team," I announced. The dog in question raised his head at the sound of his name at the exact same time that Rachel's gaze snapped up to look at me. The other girl's squint made it clear that she wasn't sure if I was being insulting or not. Knowing how quickly that uncertainty tended to fall quickly into anger, I continued. "He'd teach them to stop gossiping pretty quick."

Rachel's eyes rolled, but she gave a grunt of acknowledgment and settled a little before muttering, "He still could."

I regarded Theo for a minute. We really hadn't had that much time to interact or get to know each other yet. I knew that he had been found by one of the boss's contacts while experimenting with his power, but I really had no idea how loyal he felt to the man, or what his opinion was about... any of this. I'd tried to get him to open up, but the guy just seemed really closed off. He wasn't rude or anything, just... passive. Like he was afraid to really give his opinion about anything.

A year ago, the thought of so many people talking about me and passing some random picture of me around would have left me giddy beyond belief. Now, now I wasn't sure what I thought about it. On the one hand, I was embarrassed and a little ashamed. But I was also considering how I could use it. This was a chance to make the public see the Undersiders any way that we wanted them to. The biggest thing that people knew us for right now was rescuing a bunch of hostages from the Merchants. We were thieves with hearts of gold. What we did next could decide the entire narrative about our team for a really long time. If the public liked us... well, it opened a lot of possibilities.

But to do anything with that, I had to meet Lisa's boss first. I needed to know just what kind of man he was. And how likely he was to make problems for us.

Even as I was thinking that, the van pulled to a stop in the parking lot of a rundown gas station. The driver, who had been silent save for introducing himself as Sam, gestured. "Stand over there. They'll be here for you in a minute."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but the man clearly wasn't the type to answer questions. So we got out and moved to the place he had indicated. Or a few of us did. I had Alloy, myself, and Tattletale stand there. Bitch and her dogs were on the other side of the boarded up building, Nimue stayed over by the remnants of the pumps, hidden by her invisibility cloak, and Regent perched himself on the edge of the gas station's roof. I didn't care if this guy was supposed to be on our side, I wasn't just going to let my whole team stand dumbly in the exact spot that he told us to.

The van drove off as soon as we were out, and we stood around waiting for about five minutes. Just as I was about to ask Tattletale if her boss was always this late, two figures abruptly appeared in the middle of the lot between the three of us that were standing there and the pumps where the invisible Nimue was.

Both figures were in costume, and couldn't possibly have looked different. The older, taller figure was clearly a grown man. His outfit was basically a SWAT uniform, except instead of being black and gray or whatever, the whole thing was a garishly patriotic red, white, and blue. The words 'Sui Juris' were written on the pocket of the uniform, and he was carrying both a riot shield with 'Auribus Teneo Lupum' written on it, and some kind of heavily modified harpoon gun.

In contrast, the person at his side was a _very_ young girl. At a guess considering her size, I'd put her at around nine or ten years old. She was wearing pink tights, a slightly darker pink skirt with white patterns over it, what looked like a white metallic bit of chest armor over her torso, and matching metal gauntlets that looked almost comically big for her hands. Her face was hidden behind a gleaming white mask with glowing pink eyes that was attached to the tiara that sat on top of her head.

As I stared, the girl took a quick step forward. One of her gloves slipped down, revealing a much smaller hand that she extended our way. "Hi!" She chirped brightly. "I'm Princess Wander, glad to meet you!"

"Wander," the man behind her spoke warningly. "Put your freedom fist back on."

"Aww, but da—I mean Aequitas, I dunno how to shake hands with it without crushing things yet." Quickly taking my hand in her smaller, thankfully non-crushing grip, the girl shook quickly. "I've been reading aaaaaaaall about you guys! Did you really-"

"Wander," the man, Aequitas, apparently, spoke a bit more firmly. The girl sighed and tugged on her gauntlet once more, and he focused on us. "We were told there were more of you."

I looked to Tattletale, and she nodded back at me. So I gestured for the others to come in. "I didn't know the man we were working with had other capes on his payroll."

Rather than reply, Aequitas just grunted. He waited until the others had come in before pointing at the dogs. "They really have to come along?"

Before Bitch could do more than snarl a little, I replied, "They're part of the team. They come or none of us do."

Sighing, the man waved a hand. "Do it, Wander."

"Princess Wander," the little girl corrected him, and looked dead set on not doing a damn thing until he said it.

He let out a long sigh, but finally did so. "Do it, Princess Wander. Let's get these people to the boss so we can grab the others and get something useful done."

I was about to ask what she was going to do, when the girl herself piped up again. "Don't worry! It won't hurt. You don't even feel nothin'. I'm just gonna make us all be somewhere else. You ready?"

Ah. She was the teleporter, the way they'd just popped up out of nowhere. Made sense, considering her name. And now she was going to take us back to meet the man who had put the Undersiders together, and who apparently was behind these people too.

"Ready," I confirmed after looking back at my team to make sure none of them had any objections.

Time to see who this boss was. And find out just how hard it was going to be to yank **my** team out of his grasp.

 **10-05 – Sophia**

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

God, I missed using my power at times like these.

I'd had to shove that thought down throughout the entire trip from the underground tunnel. The place that Bryce's scouter gnomes had noticed the ABB creeps at was too far away to walk. Normally, I would've just taken a few quick leaps over the rooftops with my power. It wasn't flight, but being able to jump from rooftop to rooftop was sure as hell faster than jogging or taking the stupid bus.

But no, I had to pretend to be a boring, useless old human. Well, human aside from the toys that Bryce could make up. It was _almost_ enough to make me want to pretend Aisha's antics were enough to give me a trigger event that by **sheer coincidence** happened to give me powers similar to Shadow Stalker.

Yeah, that was probably a bad idea. Which was why, instead, I was letting Muse use one of her new clouds to ferry me alongside herself and Aisha. The two of us were crouched down on either side of the cloud, with Muse standing up in the middle, crouched slightly like she was surfing or something. She'd even shaped part of the cloud in front of Aisha and me into grips that we could hold onto to stay on.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, we were up high. I really didn't like it. Not that Muse was bad at this shit or anything. She'd taken to it pretty quickly, actually, after an initial rough start while she got the hang of things. No, what I fucking hated was handing control over to anyone while we were up high. It made me... shit, not nervous. I didn't do nervous. I wasn't some whiny little crybaby. It made me uncomfortable. That's it.

Or maybe what was making me uncomfortable were Aisha's imps. She'd brought all twenty that she had ready, naturally. They were all piled up on a second cloud that was flying a short distance behind us, set to some kind of autopilot or something. Muse said she had it set to follow our cloud at a specific distance and speed. Which meant that, trailing behind us as we flew through the air, there was a cloud full of about twenty imps made of various materials that were constantly cackling, squealing, and cavorting around while making noises that sounded suspiciously like dirty jokes. They were dancing, hopping on top of each other to make tall, swaying stacks of themselves, and so on. It was basically like being followed around by a tiny bar full of drunk frat boys that would've fit in my closet.

Aisha, obviously, was having a blast. Even Muse seemed happier up here, less... I dunno, stiff than she'd been. She relaxed a bit and actually looked like she was having fun exploring this new power.

Finally, after entirely too long for my comfort, the clouds set down on the rooftop of a building near the mattress store that Bryce had pointed out. Aisha had (thankfully) only had to be reminded twice to silence her imps before we arrived, and the little shits were already quietly spreading out. I saw a few hopping up on top of the low wall that surrounded the roof edge while others took off to either side, sliding down a convenient fire escape on one end and a rain gutter on the other. In the street below, they would surround our target, letting Aisha see through the eyes of almost two dozen scouts at once.

The kid may be immature and pretty damn impulsive, but fuck if her power wasn't really useful.

Bryce came over the comm the second we arrived. "Scouter's still got a visual on at least one guard at the front. Dude's smoking a reefer or something, so he's not doing a very good job." He sounded pretty judgmental about smoking for a kid that had blown off his math quiz a couple days earlier so he could keep working on a costume whose _entire point_ was to create smoke. Well, cloud, but whatever.

"You got anything useful?" I asked Aisha as we stepped off the cloud and Mu-Cloudkicker dismissed it. I had to get used to those names. Cloudkicker, Cloudkicker, Cloudkicker. Imp, Imp, Imp. Saying the wrong name at the wrong time was... yeah, that shit was bad. Which went double in my case. I had to keep track of what Sophia-me knew, what Hinder-me knew, and what Shadow Stalker-me knew, and keep them all separate. The last thing I needed was to run into Cloudkicker while I was out as Shadow Stalker and stupidly call her Muse. That was the kind of mistake that would fuck me over completely.

"One sec," Imp replied while hopping up on top of the low wall, crouching down to kneel there like a gargoyle. Cloudkicker stood nearby, cloud coiling around one arm almost like some kind of pet snake.

I had to snort inwardly at the difference in costume design between all three of us. There was me, in my padded green coveralls, combat boots, and the ski mask with the green ski goggles. Then there was Imp in her black bodysuit with the white demon face on the chest and the skull-like white demon mask that was partially covered by the hood of the green cloak. And finally, there was Cloudkicker in her gleaming silver and white costume with the _Rocketeer_ helmet. When you put Cloudkicker, me, and Imp in a line, we looked like some kid's examples of of good, neutral, and evil costumes.

It also didn't escape me that my Shadow Stalker costume was closer to Imp's costume than Cloudkicker's.

"Kay, there's like... eleven guys in there—wait, twelve." Imp reported. "One of 'em was taking a sh—I mean, using the toilet. Eight guys, four girls. Don't see any capes unless they're laying low. No hostages either. Definitely ABB though, unless there's some _other_ Asian gang in town. Wait, there's not, right?"

"Right," I murmured, already thinking. Fuck, Foil's sister wasn't there. I'd been hoping we could get this whole blackmail thing knocked out tonight if possible. But even if she wasn't there, at least we could beat up some random ABB creeps. That thought made me feel a little bit better already.

Imp spoke up then, interrupting my thoughts. "Wait, I thought they lost all their non-cape members."

Before I could respond, Bryce—errr, Churchill piped up through the comm, "Must've been recruiting a lot. I don't think you really tell someone like Lung no if he tells you that you're part of his gang now."

"What if you're not actually Asian?" Cloudkicker asked.

"Dude, have you seen him in full-on _Savage Dragon_ form?" Churchill demanded. "Given a choice between arguing with him or arguing with your own damn genetics, I'd take the second one."

Shaking my head, I lamented, "I'm not even sure if I should applaud this sense of self-preservation, or point out that the entire concept of this team happens to involve us fighting him at some point."

"I'll come up with something by then," Bryce promised. "I've got ideas. For now, you should just-"

He was interrupted by the sound of a voice from below shouting, "Grab that fucking cape cunt!"

As soon as I heard it, my head snapped around to the spot where Imp had just been, a rebuke on my lips. It faded, however, as I saw the girl herself still crouched there, obviously squinting at me.

"One," she spoke up flatly. "That wasn't me. And two, I am _totally_ being profiled here, you all saw it."

Cloudkicker had already moved to the edge of the roof, raising a hand to point down. "Look."

Moving beside her, I squinted toward the street below while repeatedly telling myself to be calm and keep it together rather than curse a few dozen times. As cathartic as it might have been, Imp and Churchill were already borderline. They needed a better example than that would've set.

So, instead, I focused on seeing what was actually happening. And what was happening was that there were suddenly a lot more people on the street just a short distance away from the mattress store than there had been a couple minutes earlier. And most of those new people were in one costume or another.

"Churchill," I spoke aloud. "Turn your gnome ninety degrees. We've got company. Cape company."

I recognized about half of the capes immediately. Three of them were from the Protectorate. There was Dauntless, Prism, and Triumph. Those three were clearly in the middle of some drawn out battle with the other capes on the street. My quickly scanning eyes picked out the massively tall, thin as a rail guy in the black tuxedo with the white mask that covered the top half of his face that we had seen in back in the mall. I'd since learned that his name was Kanjiru. His 'deal' was that he couldn't actually feel anything. Good sensation, bad sensation, pleasure, pain, whatever. He couldn't feel it. Instead, he just stored it away and could apply it to anyone he touched, transferring that pain or pleasure to them.

He wasn't alone. Spread out around him were two other new capes that I didn't know. One was a squat, heavy-set man wearing a costume that consisted of a brown bodysuit with a few black markings up the legs, and a welder's mask. His shaved head was bare aside from a tattoo of a sword that obviously started much lower on his back, rising up to show only the tip of the blade on his shiny dome.

Honestly, what the fuck was the point of a mask if you could be identified that easily? Dumbasses.

"We should get down there," Imp started to move impatiently, but stopped as I caught her shoulder. A single look made her sigh. "Yeah, yeah, stay up here until we know what's going on. I got it."

Leaving my hand where it was anyway, I returned my attention to the scene below. The other cape that I didn't know was a female wearing a full body suit that looked professionally made. It was practically painted on. The inside of her legs was white, while the outside was blue. The white stretched up over the center of her stomach on up over the middle of her chest and to her neck. The blue outside color, meanwhile, continued up over her sides and to her shoulders, including her arms. She wore a blue mask that left her eyes and short black hair exposed. She was holding a sword with a long red blade.

And finally, because this whole thing wasn't fucked enough, I could see Oni Lee. The psycho assassin son of a bitch was teleporting around while each of Prism's three selves tried to keep up with him. She kept splitting and merging, each of them trying to get the drop on the other one without much success.

She, apparently, was the 'cape cunt' that the shout had been referring to. And the shouter was the idiot with the easily identifiable tattoo on his ugly bald head. He was giving orders to the handful of standard thug gang members that were already spreading out, guns up as they tried to get a line on Prism.

Dauntless, meanwhile, was in the middle of his own pitched battle with the female ABB cape with the nice costume. He had his spear raised in one hand, thrusting it forward as a bolt of lightning shot out.

The ABB cape simply raised the red sword she was carrying, catching the lightning on the end of it before giving a wild swing that sent the electricity out toward Triumph, who had been trying to come up on her other side. He was forced into a sideways roll that took him away from the girl.

Continuing her pivot, the ABB chick released the sword, throwing it toward Dauntless. The guy brought that shield of his up defensively. Yet before the sword would have struck it, the damn thing actually _transformed._ Instead of a red blade, there was a god damn **person** there in the middle of a flying kick. At first I thought the girl had switched places with her weapon. Then my brain caught up and I realized her costume looked different. She had red where the other girl had blue, and gold where the other had white. Other than that, they looked identical. It was like a palette swap on one of those old fighter video games.

The red and gold costumed figure planted one foot against Dauntless's shield, using that as a plant to push herself up and over, kicking him in the face. In mid-spin as she was coming back down, the girl that was obviously her twin sister took a running leap that way. The blue and white costumed figure shrank and reshaped herself as she launched, becoming a blue mace that the red and gold costumed girl caught hold of and brought around and down toward Dauntless's shoulder while he was still reeling.

At the last second, the Protectorate hero managed to put his shield up into the path of the mace. But even as he countered with his spear, the twins switched places again. The mace turned back into a girl, and her sister became a long red harpoon that she used to knock the spear off course. With the spear out of the way and Dauntless back pedaling, the blue girl planted the harpoon and jumped over it. In the same instant, she shifted from her human shape into a long rapier, and the harpoon transitioned back into the red girl, catching the blue rapier and stabbing it forward to catch Dauntless in the side, drawing blood that time. They were synced up in perfect harmony. No wonder Dauntless was having trouble.

Triumph, meanwhile, let loose with one of his concussive screams. The blast struck three of the nearest ABB troops that had been trying to line up shots on Prism, knocking them to the ground.

Unfortunately, doing so left the poor guy wide open for Kanjiru to get a quick grab in. At his touch, Triumph shouted again, this time in pain. He stumbled, taking a knee before catching himself. Fighting through what had to be intense fucking agony, the guy managed to kick Kanjiru's legs out from under him, dumping the masochistic piece of shit to the ground before jerking away from him.

However, Kanjiru wasn't Triumph's biggest problem just then. Because the bald guy in the ugly brown costume was right there, punching downward with a fist that the Protectorate boy barely managed to twist away from. The guy's fist went partway through the pavement, pulverizing it.

Brute then. Good to know.

"Okay," I finally spoke after taking in all of that. It had only been a few seconds, even though it felt like longer. "Imp, make your little friends useful and attack Kanjiru and all those extra guys. We already know he can't hurt you through them. Keep him and the rest of those f—guys out of the way. The Protectorate could fight better if they didn't have to keep one eye out for the creeps with the guns."

Giving Cloudkicker a quick glance then, I gestured. "Oni Lee has to see to teleport. Blind him with your cloud and keep it on him as long as you can."

"What're you gonna do?" both of them asked, almost in unison.

"Me?" I asked while already moving to throw myself over the edge of the roof. "I'm gonna punch that piece of shit so hard he'll start speaking Spanish."

Dropping over the roof, I used a hand against the side of the building to slow my descent with the glove's wall-climbing ability. Still, I landed fairly hard, turning it into a roll before popping up into a sprint, straight across the middle of the impromptu battlefield.

Ahead of me, the handful of ABB gangsters had been joined by several more from inside, all rushing to join the party. Each of them turned toward me, but before they could do anything, a dozen imps of various materials all threw themselves into the attack. I saw a fire imp leap up and burn one poor son of a bitch across the face, just before three more made of various metals landed on top of the shotgun another thug was wielding, tearing it from his grasp while one made of wood went running up his leg to punch the fuck right where no guy ever wants a block of wood (or anything else) to punch him. Imp's soldiers were everywhere, hitting the ABB troops from every side. They had no chance to focus on me.

Which was good, because I ran right through them and toward the spot where Oni Lee and Prism were fighting. He had just teleported behind the Protectorate second-in-command, and she _appeared_ to be helplessly focusing on the clone he had left behind, even as he came at her with one of those knives.

At the last second, however, I saw a different Prism drop down toward the man from the awning above. The one that had been left out as a sacrificial lamb vanished a second before Oni Lee would have struck her, rejoining her other-self just in time to kick Oni Lee hard enough that the man went sprawling to the ground, dropping his knife.

He fell into ash an instant later, reappearing behind Prism once more just as she split into three distinct selves. This was obviously a fight that could keep going for a long time.

Fortunately, it didn't have to. Just as Oni Lee seemed to hear my approaching footsteps and turned toward me, a thick white cloud rose up and planted itself over his eyes, blinding the man. He cursed in what was probably Japanese, twisting his head this way and that in an attempt to get it off himself.

Before he could, I was there. Planting both hands against the fuck's chest, I triggered the gloves and pumped as much electricity into him as I could. That probable-curse of his turned into a scream, and he twisted around before collapsing. He twitched once, then again, mumbling incoherently.

"Who are you?" One of the Prisms asked, obviously still a bit wary in spite of what she had just seen.

I started to respond immediately, but stopped myself and took the time to activate the voice changer that Bryce had (thank fuck) finished a few days earlier. With that done, I replied, "I'm Hinder. We're Normandy. You want our help dealing with these guys or not?"

There was a brief pause as each of the three Prisms looked first to the ongoing battle, then each other, and finally back to me. One nodded. "All right then. You took down Oni Lee. That's pretty damn impressive.

"Let's see what else you guys can do."

 **10-06 – Taylor**

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

Mr. Gladly was dead. Another person had been killed by whoever had found my notebook. Another life violently scrubbed out because of words that I had written. Another family left to mourn because _someone_ had chosen to use my journal as an excuse to enact sick revenge on everyone remotely connected to the bullying campaign that I had been **trying** to put behind me, as much as possible.

Apparently some teenagers had found the poor man's body left behind the dumpster in the back of Fugly Bob's parking lot with my name chiseled into the nearby concrete. The news had come from my father, who had called the Palanquin after Detective Daley contacted him. The man had wanted us to get the news directly from him rather than risk seeing the death on the news and being surprised by it.

God. This couldn't be happening. Of everything that I imagined when I took down those notes, hoping that someday I'd be able to present my side of the story, I never thought anything like this would happen. I never wanted people to die. Not even that trio of hideous bitches. Punished, yes. Stopped, for damn sure. But not killed. Never killed. I didn't want any of this. Whoever was doing it, they obviously didn't know me at all. They were obviously using my notebook as an excuse for their own violence.

I had to stop them. It was my responsibility. I hadn't asked them to do it, but they were using my notes.

Besides, focusing on this let me stop focusing on the fact that Emily was still dead. The girl whose nurse friend was the sole reason I could move at all, the reason I could communicate with my father, was gone. The guilt I felt at having survived while she hadn't was a constant pressure in my head. Add in the death of Newter, who I didn't have as much of a connection to, but still liked and it was... bad. I hadn't known either of them that long, but they were still my friends. Friends that I'd desperately needed, and that had now been taken away because of more stupid gang warfare. The bastards.

Faultline was working on getting us a job that would help track down every last one of those Nazi assholes who had been at that farm, all of them that had escaped. She'd enlisted Gregor and Mockshow to help, the former for his diplomatic skill and the latter for muscle. The order of that was kind of funny when you thought about it. But until they managed to come back with a lead, the rest of us had some free time. Free time that we were choosing to spend dealing with whoever was killing in my name.

"Don't worry, Taylor." Elle's hand patted mine as the two of us sat together in the back of one of several nondescript cars that Faultline kept around. I felt the pat somewhat distantly, my own vision currently showing me the entire interior of the car from every angle, along with a bit of the road outside.

Elle gave my hand a squeeze after patting it, somehow knowing my thoughts even though we weren't directly connected at the moment. "We'll stop them. We'll find them and they won't hurt anyone else."

Payton, who was in the front seat driving, agreed. "She's right. Everything the police have say this guy isn't a cape. He's just a psychopath. We'll track him down, truss him up for the cops, and call it in. It's gonna be okay, Taylor. Between the three of us, it shouldn't take long to find this guy, whoever he is."

And that was the thing. I had absolutely no idea who this person was. The police figured he was a grown man because of the strength involved and the way the bodies had been dragged around, but I couldn't think of a single adult male who would _do_ that kind of thing for me. Even the idea of it being Emma's father, or a man that Emma's father had hired didn't exactly sit right. It felt wrong. Emma's father might have been a jerk, but a murderer? Or willing to hire a murderer? I didn't like it. And yet I had no better explanation. There just... **wasn't** anyone who fit the description and actually knew me. Not that I especially wanted to think of _anyone_ I knew as being capable of doing... this.

Clearly trying to distract me from my gloomy thoughts, Elle gave me a gentle poke in the stomach. "You almost let me forget my hat. I can't be a detective without my hat." Reaching into the backpack that sat in her lap, she groped through it for a moment before pulling out a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat that she had cajoled Faultline into procuring, plopping it down on her own blonde head and adjusting it before beaming proudly. "See? It's not just elementary, it might even be junior high!"

Inwardly, I smiled. I couldn't help it. I knew she was just being silly on purpose, trying to make me feel better. But the fact that she _wanted_ to make me feel better, that she was being ridiculous to make me smile and distract me from my own thoughts was enough. I hadn't known her all that long, but Elle was... she had filled a hole in me that had been there ever since Emma's betrayal. She was goofy and funny and cute and... Elle. She reminded me of how to be myself, how to be the Taylor that I'd been before everything that had happened. My power's direction in combat and the suit that Faultline had secured gave me the chance to be a _person_ again. Elle's friendship gave me a chance to be _Taylor_ again.

"Coming up on the right in twenty seconds," Payton warned. "You guys better get ready."

As always, directing myself into Elle's head was simple beyond belief. All I had to do was think it, and my vision went from a panoramic view of the car to seeing my own body through her eyes. The hood of my jacket was up to cover my hair, and I wore sunglasses. It made me look a bit like an actress who didn't want to be recognized, though I couldn't think of any of them who looked quite as plain as I did.

"Hello, Taylor!" Elle chirped happily while leaning over my body to look out the nearby window. The street was almost empty, save for a couple of parked police cars with their top lights flashing.

A few seconds later, one of the policemen who were directing traffic away from the parking lot stepped into view, hand raised to wave us on. Elle's eyes locked with his, raising a hand to wave back at him.

And then I was watching her wave as the car that she and my body were in continued on down the street, leaving my consciousness behind inside the head of the cop who had been directing us.

I felt the man's disgust at the scene behind him. He wanted to go home. He wanted to hug his son and kiss his wife. He wanted to forget all of this had ever happened. He was thinking about quitting this job, maybe getting something easier with better hours. He could be a security guard somewhere. With his skills and education, he could probably get a job in corporate security. At least there he wouldn't have to see bodies like the one back there that the suits were going over with a fine toothed comb.

At that thought, the man reflexively glanced behind himself. In the distant corner of the lot, one of the crime scene technicians caught the look and glanced up as though to see if anything was happening. The two men locked eyes, and I used the opportunity to jump from one head to the other.

Now I felt pride. Not pride in the dead body at my feet, of course, but pride in the fact that we were going to solve the case. I felt confidence. Whoever was responsible for these murders, they weren't going to get away with it. We would analyze the body, find the mistake the killer had made, and lock them up where they couldn't hurt anyone ever again. All it took was a bit of patience and he'd be done.

Then he looked down at the corpse, and I was immediately glad that I had no control over the body that I was in, because I would have screamed immediately. I would have thrown up, and probably cried.

Mr. Gladly's eyelids had been stitched shut. Above his forehead the words, 'sees nothing' had been written in some kind of marker. His ears were folded down and stitched closed as well, and the words 'hears nothing' were scrawled across his left cheek with an arrow pointing to the nearest ear as if to make the point even more obvious. On the right cheek, the words 'says nothing' were written. Another arrow pointed to his lips which had also been stitched closed. From the impression that I was getting from the crime scene tech who was looking at the body, all of this had been done while he was alive.

He'd survived that much. The part he hadn't survived was immediately apparent, and even more horrifying. The man had been cut open, straight down the chest cavity. Where his heart should have been, there was a plastic-covered card that read, 'heartless.' Where a bunch of his other organs should have been, there was another card. This one read, 'gutless.' There was no sign of any of those organs.

I wanted to scream. No! I didn't want this! Stop it! Damn it, whoever you were, stop! Please! Stop killing people. I didn't want this, I didn't want it! Mr. Gladly just wanted people to like him. He was obsessed with being the 'cool teacher,' but he didn't... he hadn't... god damn it, please stop it.

It took me a little bit to pull myself together enough to actually pay attention to what the tech was analyzing. In the end, I finally managed it simply by telling myself that it was the only way to put a stop to this. I had to use the technician, and any of the other people at the scene that I could jump into, to get a full picture of what had happened. I would jump from head to head, keeping up with everything the police were finding out. Any clues they found, I would know about. Any evidence they analyzed, I would see as well. I needed to know what they knew, so that I could stop this psychopath.

Even if seeing this made me feel like my soul had been put through the same thing Mr. Gladly had.

An hour later, we found something. Or rather, the policemen had found something, the knowledge of which I 'borrowed' while jumping back to my own head, thankful to be away from that body.

Payton had been busy in the meantime. As my vision returned to the panoptic view of the car, I saw that the red-haired girl was now wearing a police uniform that she had conjured up from... somewhere.

Elle, meanwhile, was staring off into space while poking at something in the air that wasn't really there. At least, it wasn't there in our world. As usual, when I wasn't present, she'd let herself drift away. According to Faultline, they'd never seen Elle as anchored and connected to the world as she was when I was with her. Yet when I wasn't around or we weren't directly interacting, she still tended to lose focus and get lost in her own power. We helped each other. She was my partner, the way Emma had been.

As soon as I was oriented, my focus shifted toward my slumped over body. Thanks to the suit beneath my ordinary clothes, my arm responded immediately to my command. My hand rose to push at Payton's seat, startling the girl into a yelp before she looked back at me. "Oh, Taylor. Got something?"

I made my head nod once, already focusing on throwing my mind over to Elle. I could have used either the text-to-speech option on the special cell phone that Faultline had provided, or stumbled my way through a brief explanation using the sign language that Mockshow was teaching me. But I wasn't confident enough in my use of either of those, particularly the latter. And both would take too long.

 _Elle?_ I thought as loudly as I could to get the other girl's attention while pushing my mind partway to hers. I didn't want to fall all the way into her 'otherworld', since the two of us had a habit of getting lost when I did that. Usually it was only for a few minutes, but I was pretty sure every minute counted now.

"Hello, Taylor!" Elle, cheerful as always at my arrival, spoke aloud. Her head turned away from the window to look at my body while she stopped poking the air. "Do we know where the bad guy is?"

 _I think so,_ I sent back. _Can you tell Payton to drive down by that new touristy area on the north end? The area that the mayor was trying to fix up to bring in new business. There was sand under Mr. Gladly's fingernails and in his... uhhmm..._ I blanched, the thought sickening me. … _inside his wounds that's some of that special new sand they were trucking in last month to make that artificial beach. The cops are already canvasing the area, but there's four different motels and two whole apartment buildings to cover, and they can't really look inside places without more to go on. But we can._

Elle promptly relayed the message, and Payton shifted the car into drive. While we were going, I used the phone to ask where the police uniform had come from, my curiosity outweighing my hesitation.

"Oh, this?" Payton tugged at one sleeve while making a sharp left turn. "I had it in the trunk. Figured this might make things easier if anyone came by to ask why we were sitting around waiting for so long. And yeah, it's real. You'd be surprised what a couple hundred bucks will convince a cop in this city to misplace. Your public servants are seriously underpaid in this world. It's kind of criminal. Oh and," her hand gestured to the shoulder-mounted radio that was already crackling with voices. "It's another way to keep track of what they're up to and if they've got anything."

Before long, we reached the area that the police had mentioned. I could see two different patrol cars drive by and turn into the parking lot of the nearest motel, while another motel had a pair of cops leaving, their shaking heads making it clear that they hadn't found anything. And why would they? Unless the murderer was dumb enough to make themselves suspicious in front of a desk attendant, or literally hauled a body into the hall while the cops were there, they had no real way of finding them.

We, on the other hand, could. Though it wasn't perfect, or nearly as fast as I would have hoped. Especially since we had no way of knowing if the first building we chose would be right. If it wasn't, we were going to have to do this whole thing more than once. I found myself wishing that Payton's power actually _was_ luck the way she played it as, because I'd just have her choose a place at random.

In the end, I chose the apartment building across the street from the motels that the police were checking. I was reasoning that whoever it was would want a place more private than a motel room.

Payton parked in the back lot, and the three of us got out together before heading into the building. A guy that was sitting out on the stoop saw the uniform that Payton was wearing and immediately hopped up to head inside. I was worried at first, but as we stopped beside the door of the apartment that he had disappeared into, my circle of vision expanded enough to reveal the man inside his apartment dumping an absurd amount of marijuana into the toilet before flushing it.

We searched the entire apartment building without any luck. I'd get close enough to an apartment door to let my vision expand to reveal as much of the interior as possible, looking for anything suspicious. It was obviously incredibly invasive, and I felt guilty every time I saw something that I shouldn't have. But, well, it was for a good cause. And in my defense, _**I**_ felt mentally scarred after seeing some of the stuff I really hadn't wanted to. Nothing as bad as murder, but eesh, people.

From there, we moved to the next apartment building. This one was smaller than the last, only three stories as opposed to five. Payton parked, and the three of us started to make the rounds once more. We would walk slowly, stopping by each door long enough for me to get an idea of what was going on inside before moving on.

I was about to give up this search as pointless as well when something stopped me just as I started to move on from a dark apartment with only a few incredibly cheap pieces of furniture that made me think it was just another bachelor pad. However, just as I started to tell my body to take another step and move on to the next apartment, my vision expanded a _little_ bit more, showing me about half of the bedroom (void of furniture save for a mattress with an old blanket) and most of the kitchenette. An ugly green refrigerator sat there, mundane and forgettable in every respect except for one.

There was a picture of me taped to the front of it.

Payton noticed that I wasn't moving on and turned back to me. "Taylor?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Silently, I pointed to the apartment door while reaching up to tug my jacket off, revealing the costume beneath. My hands extended toward Elle, who was already slipping the backpack off her shoulder. She produced my helmet, setting it into my hands before taking her own mask out to pull it on.

Elle didn't have her robe with her, there was no way to wear it without attracting attention or being obvious. However, as she unzipped the jacket that she was wearing, I saw that she had used some kind of fabric marker to write the words, 'I am Labyrinth' on the front of the simple white shirt that she wore. That was followed by a simple smiley face and beneath it was a stick figure wearing a robe, standing on top of a wall with the word, 'Me' written next to it.

By that time, Payton had produced her own mask, and drew the pistol that was part of her costume. "Ready?" she asked, one hand on the doorknob.

"Ready!" Elle chirped while I gave a simple nod.

Yes. I was beyond ready. It was time to find out who was killing people in my name, and make them stop. Principal Blackwell, Mr. Gladly, I couldn't save them. But I could stop anyone else from dying.

Just as I thought that, my vision expanded one more time. I could see the entire kitchenette, as well as the rest of the bedroom, including a large storage case or trunk of some kind that sat in a corner of the room. But there weren't clothes, knick-knacks, or even camping equipment in this particular trunk. Instead, the space was taken up by a single figure. A living figure. A person was in that case, scrunched in to fit the too-small area in what was obviously a painful position.

 _Julia._ I recognized her immediately. The girl, one of the trio's hangers-on who was always trying to impress them, was bound and gagged in the trunk. I couldn't tell how long she'd been there, only that she'd been trapped inside the confined space and... left there. Like the locker.

Before I realized what I was doing, my foot was already kicking the door in, and I was running into the room, making a beeline for that trunk. It took less than a minute for me to undo all of the clasps that were holding it shut, yank the lid open, and haul the bound girl inside up and out of it. She was heavier than she looked, but I didn't care. Adrenaline propelled me. I couldn't go back in time and save myself from the locker, but I would **never** leave anyone else in that position. Not even Julia. Not even the bitches that put me in the real one to begin with. That wasn't me. That wasn't who I was.

Julia started crying anew as soon as she was hauled out. As I tugged the gag out of her mouth, she immediately began babbling about how sorry she was. With her bound arms, she couldn't grab onto me, so she just sort of collapsed against me while sobbing openly against my shoulder. She was shaking violently, snot mixing with her tears as she begged me not to let her die, going on about how she was sorry and she wouldn't hurt anyone again and how she just wanted to see her mommy and daddy again, and please, please, please don't kill her. Don't let her die. Don't leave her alone. Don't put her back in the box. She'd be good. She wouldn't ever be bad again. And on and on.

She was safe now. She wasn't dead. But we needed her to calm down. If we were going to catch whoever did this, Julia was the best chance at getting any actual information about them.

For now though, in that moment, I let myself feel a _little_ bit happy. We saved her. We saved this psychopath's next victim. Principal Blackwell and Mr. Gladly were still gone, but Julia was safe.

It was only one win, small against the recent tide of bad news. But it was a win nonetheless.

I'd take it.

 **10-07 – Madison**

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

"I figured this was where you'd be."

That was Amy, standing in the doorway of the empty classroom. Mr. Gladly's empty classroom. School had been over for hours by that point. Most of the lights were off, and in the distance, I could hear the steady thrumming noise of one of the janitors using the floor waxer in another hallway.

As for me, I was sitting in what had been my assigned seat. My legs were drawn up against my chest with my arms wrapped tightly around them, hugging myself while shaking a little with each breath that escaped me. My eyes were staring at the empty desk at the front of the room. Mr. Gladly's empty desk.

When I didn't respond to Amy, she stepped into the classroom and closed the door after herself before crossing over to the desk beside mine. For a second, she just stood there before sitting next to me.

For almost a minute, the two of us sat there in silence. I stared at the blackboard, peripherally aware of Amy watching me. I could almost hear the sound of the clock in the corner ticking away the seconds.

When the silence was finally broken, it took me a second to realize that I was the one talking. "He's..." I closed my eyes and let out a sigh before forcing myself to continue now that I'd started. "He's dead."

She didn't say anything at first, but a moment later I felt her hand on my arm. "I heard. I'm sorry about Mr. Gladly, Madison. I'm... sorry you had to hear about that the way you did. Rune called the burner phone that you gave her the number to. She said someone in school found out about it?"

Without opening my eyes, I nodded slightly before tucking my chin back against my knees. "Dabney. His dad's a cop. He umm, he told him. He wasn't supposed to, but-" My voice choked itself off then and I pushed my head down further, pressing my face into my legs. "But who cares? I'm... I..."

Nothing. Nothing else came out. I opened and shut my mouth a few times, but no words emerged. There was just a strangled, sad little keening noise that I wasn't sure was actually coming from me at first, while the pink flower design on the legs of my jeans soaked in the dampness from my eyes.

The hand on my arm moved down a little before squeezing. Amy's voice was quiet. "Madison, if you want to talk about it... I mean, I know I'm not your parents or anyone you're really close to, but..."

Lifting my chin just a little bit, I whispered, "I told him no one respected him." The shame hit me hard, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut even tighter. Before I knew what was happening, the words were spilling out of me in one long rush. "It was the day we met, the day I went home with you guys. He was trying to talk to me, and I told him that he was so busy making sure everyone liked him that he didn't even notice that none of us respected him. Then I walked out. I just... left, and I didn't talk to him again. Not directly. He didn't try, and I didn't let him. I was just so... mad that he ignored Taylor for so long, that he let all of us get away with everything just because he wanted us to like him. I was mad and I couldn't get over it. Now he's gone. He's dead, and it's because of what we did. What I helped do."

Shoving my legs down suddenly, I pushed myself up and walked to the front of the classroom. My hands went out to smack against the chalkboard, and fresh tears came spilling out my eyes, blinding me once again. "I wouldn't even talk to him! I want people to forgive me, but I wouldn't even **talk** to him? If I had, maybe we could've... I dunno, figured something out. And now he's dead. He's dead because of what we did. Someone out there is killing people, killing _innocent_ people because of Emma, Sophia, and me. Us. Our choices. Our actions. Two people have been killed because of what we did. Not to mention Taylor. She—her life... no wonder someone wants us to pay for what we put her through."

"No," Amy said quietly from where she was sitting. "Someone is _using_ what you did as an excuse to kill people. None of you deserve that. Nothing you did makes you deserve to die, Madison, let alone _other people._ It's an excuse. Trust me, I've heard a lot of rationalizations. Every time I work at the hospital I ask what people did to get injured. They've always got a reason, so I've gotten pretty good at telling when someone is really trying to find justice and when someone's just using a bullshit excuse for violence. This? This is a bullshit excuse for violence. You all deserved to be punished, yeah, but this is wrong. You aren't responsible for what this person does, because if it wasn't you guys, it would be some other reasoning, some other excuse. Other people would die. Maybe a cab driver that ripped him off. Maybe a waiter that took down the wrong order. Maybe a girlfriend who broke up with him. Someone who does this sort of thing is a sick freak and **you** are not responsible for what they do. He chose to fixate on what you guys did as some kind of justification for his pathetic revenge fantasy. That's not your fault." Amy had stood up from the desk by that point, and moved behind me before settling her hands on my shoulders. She squeezed a little bit. "None of this is your fault. It's his."

"What about the fact that I ruined a girl's life because I had a a crush on the other two girls that did it?" I asked, my voice bitter in spite of myself. "What about the fact that a girl is crippled now, probably for the rest of her life, because I'm a lesbian and I'm too fucking stupid to realize it? Is that my fault?"

For a moment, Amy didn't say anything. I felt her go still behind me before she let out a low sigh. Her hands tightened on my shoulders as she turned me around to face her. I didn't resist.

"How long did you know?" I asked quietly, looking up at her once we were face to face "How long did it take you to figure out that I was—that I am... that I'm attracted to girls?" It was so hard for me to say. Not because of any particular problem I had with the concept, but because of what it meant for my relationship with Emma and Sophia and the things that we had done, the things **I** had done.

"Basically as soon as we met," Amy admitted while meeting my gaze. "You weren't exactly subtle about it. I didn't know why you weren't, you know, open about it at first, but I figured it wasn't my place, or anyone else's, to push. After awhile, I figured out that you were repressing it, but I wasn't sure how to bring it up gently without being too embarrassing. And I definitely didn't know anything about Taylor Hebert. None of us did. Mostly we sort of just figured you'd work it out on your own, and we'd be there to help once you were ready. We... didn't want to push you on it too much. Especially after the Empire thing. We just got you back, and with your parents the condition they're in, it wasn't the right time."

"So everyone knows already?" I had guessed as much, looking back on the conversations that we'd had. Scion, I'd been completely clueless. Everything I'd said, the way I'd stared at Vicky and Crystal, and even their mothers! I'd basically been leering at them the whole time we'd known each other.

"Yeah," Amy gave a little nod. "Pretty much. We weren't really... talking that much about you, but trust me, they know. It's okay though, Madison. Trust me, after me, no one on the team is going to look at you differently for that. I umm, I had a lot to go through when I realized how I felt. See, I was... god, I was attracted to Vicky. Yeah. You think you had it bad, I'm her _cousin._ Adopted, sure, but still. It was... really uncomfortable at first. I didn't know how to bring it up, with my whole 'adopted from a supervillain' thing. Especially with how Aunt Carol can be sometimes. So I kind of let it get really uncomfortable and weird for awhile, until it felt like I was going to explode. But then... Mom talked to me. She knew something was wrong, so she sat me down and told me that whatever was bothering me, we could talk about. She asked if I wanted to know anything else about my biological parents, that they hadn't been able to get a lot out of Marquis about who my biological mother was besides the fact that she died of cancer, but they'd try to find out who she was if it was important to me. She just wanted to help.

"I told her it wasn't about that. And it was hard, but I told her about my feelings. I told her how I felt about girls, and about Vicky. It was as uncomfortable as you could imagine. But I did it anyway. And she listened. Because she's my mother. And after I told her, I felt better. I wasn't hiding anything anymore. I didn't have to feel ashamed. Just talking about it before I exploded, it... it meant everything. It saved me. Hiding things like that is what ruins families, Madison. If I hadn't talked about it... I don't know, things would have gotten worse. I had to talk about it. And when I did, I could move on. I even told Vicky about it and she was... okay she was a little weirded out at first, but we moved on! Honestly, I think she was mostly flattered once she got over the surprise. But if we hadn't talked about it, if Mom hadn't made me talk to her because she knew something was wrong, I... the point is, no one is going to look at you differently. We've been through it. I have a girlfriend now, a **real** girlfriend. You'd be surprised how many potential problems just _talking about things_ helps. It's practically magic."

Biting my lip hard, I chanced a peek up at her and spoke in a quiet, hesitant voice. "I'm not some kind of weird, stupid freak because I didn't know how I felt?"

Amy smiled gently, hands moving to take mine before squeezing a little bit. "Nope. You're definitely not weird or stupid. A freak maybe, but you know. Welcome to the club."

Another shudder went through me. "I still did bad things just because I wanted cute girls to like me."

"Yeah," Amy nodded in agreement. "And that's bad. But it was bad **before** too. This doesn't make it more or less bad, it just gives you a reason for why you did it. And the fact that you did those things doesn't make the feelings you have now any better or worse. They're two different things, Madison. You did bad things, and you like girls. You could've done bad things because you were hungry, and it wouldn't make the fact that you get hungry some kind of evil, wrong thing. It's just a thing."

Finally, I couldn't help it anymore. I embraced the girl, hugging her tightly. "Thank you," I said quietly, my voice cracking a little bit. "I... I'm sorry I keep making everything complicated. I just wanted to be a hero and make things better, and then all this stuff keeps happening. Someone's **killing** people. Maybe they'd still be killing different people if it wasn't for us, but I am at least somewhat responsible for the targets this psychopath _is_ choosing. So I want to stop him. Before he kills anyone else."

Amy nodded while returning my hug. "We'll help you. Whoever this son of a bitch is, we'll stop him."

"If we go to the police," I pointed out hesitantly, "And convince them to let me use my power on something that the killer used, anything they touched, maybe I can tell them something about who he is. It's... kind of a long shot, but it might help. I figured out who Kaiser was because he signed his name with the pen that I absorbed. Might get some answers, anyway."

"We'll talk to Mom about that," Amy promised. "She'll know how to contact the cops safely without exposing any of us. Trust her, Mads. She knows what she's doing."

Swallowing the thick lump in my throat, I straightened and took a deep breath to steady myself. "Okay. I... I'm done feeling sorry for myself. I'm ready to be useful. And I have an idea for how I can make myself _really_ useful, but I umm, I sort of need a ride or it'll take all day."

"I can take care of that," Amy confirmed. "Where do you wanna go?"

For once, I managed a tiny smile, even as a part of me was still reeling from the horror of what had happened to Mr. Gladly. "You know how my power works. I absorb something and I learn the skill associated with it. If someone uses a knife to fight, and I absorb it, I learn how to knife-fight. If they use the knife to cook, I learn how to cook. The more stuff I have, the more choices I have. I've been doing this wrong. I've been too focused on one thing or another. I've been slow. I need to generalize. I need to make sure I have _options_. I need to be MacGyver, an answer for every situation that comes up.

From my pocket, I withdrew a debit card. "I've got about three months worth of allowances, plus four hundred dollars from selling a bunch of stupid crap I don't need anymore all in the account that my parents set up for me. Let's go to the pawn shop. They've got everything there, and it's stuff people have actually used, stuff they've practiced with. If I want to learn a bunch of skills all at once, that's the best way I can think of to do it. My power lets me learn skills by absorbing items? Okay then, let's see how far I can push that."

"Sounds like a plan," Amy agreed. "On one condition, though." Waiting for me to raise my eyebrows expectantly, she went on. "We call Vicky and ask her to help us.

"Because trust me, if we go on a shopping binge and **don't** ask for Vicky's help, she might go full supervillain."

A few hours later, and it was time to put all the results of the combined thought and effort of myself, Amy, and Vicky to the test. In the end, Amy had been right. It was Vicky who ended up coming up with the most ideas for things that I should shove in my storage space. Every little thing we looked at, Vicky had a suggestion for how it might be useful, or a situation where I might need it. She came up with so many suggestions that even the money I'd saved up hadn't been enough to cover all of it. I'd suggested making a list and coming back with more money later, but Vicky had insisted on paying for some of it. She said that the team had an expense account that covered those sort of equipment costs up to an extent. I made her call her mother, and Mrs. Dallon had made her give the phone to me to confirm that it was for the team and not a random shopping splurge, but in the end, she had agreed that the team would cover part of it. Especially if it made me more effective.

Even then, I felt bad about it, and resolved to pay them back as soon as I could figure out how. I didn't exactly have a lot of money coming in, or any way to get it. My parents had set up my allowance to automatically go into my account from theirs once a week, but other than that... I needed help.

That was for later, however. Right now, I was back in costume and out on patrol alongside Seraph, Shielder, and Laserdream. They'd tried again to convince Crystal to take the night off. But, as usual, the older girl had refused point-blank. She said she was going out regardless, that she wasn't some helpless little girl, and she could either stay with us or go on her own. In the end, Lady Photon relented. But I was pretty sure she had tried to give us a route that was as far from active gang territory as possible. We were patrolling through an area of the city that had most recently been held by the Merchants, and everyone knew they were pretty much done as a gang. Unfortunately, just because the Merchants weren't using the area didn't mean that _no one_ was.

The first hint that the four of us weren't alone as we walked down the street together was the seven-foot tall man with six arms and gray skin that reminded me of an elephant standing in the middle of our path. He wasn't wearing a costume. But then, he didn't really need one.

"Good evening," the man spoke in a thick Russian accent. "I am afraid that you must go no further. This area of the neighborhood is off limits."

As if to verify that point, a massive wolf, whose shoulders stood about as tall as mine were, came padding out of the nearby alley to take up position beside him. And from the other side of the street, I saw a girl in a sleek black and neon green armored costume emerge from a doorway.

"Excuse me?" Seraph floated a bit off the ground, arms folded. "Who are you people and who says it's off limits?"

The gray man gave a slight bow, one of his six arms gesturing. "My apologies. I am called Gyges. My companion here is Jackal. The girl you see behind us is called Tenacity. We work for White Company. You may have heard of us."

"Merc group," Laserdream announced from beside me. "But there's not a White Company cell here in Brockton Bay."

"We are expanding," Gyges replied with a shrug. "And now, we have been hired to ensure that no capes enter this neighborhood. You must turn around and leave now."

"I got news for you, buddy," Seraph announced. "You don't get to just declare a whole neighborhood off limits. Whatever you or your employer are up to, it stops now. We've had some bad experiences with 'secret projects' around here."

The gray man didn't blink. "I will ask one more time. Leave now, for your own safety."

Unfortunately, before any of us could decide if walking away was the right thing to do, something happened to take that choice out of our hands. From one of the upper floors of the building that Tenacity had emerged from, there was the sound of shattering glass as something was pitched through the window there. And through that broken window, we all heard a voice crying out desperately for help.

Gyges heaved a long sigh while the wolf beside him seemed to grow even larger, its fur bristling with the anticipation of a fight. "Now I am afraid there must be conflict."

"Conflict?" Laserdream turned slightly to look back to the rest of us as if to make sure we didn't object, then looked back at the man. An instant later, before I'd even registered her hand moving, it was up and pointed at him, and a laser was erupting from her palm. It smacked the man in the face, sending him reeling backwards to trip over the hood of the nearby car.

"How's that for conflict?"

 **10-08 – Sophia**

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

Okay, fighting these fucking shapeshifting twin bitches was turning out to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

The one in blue came at me, clutching her red-clothed sister in the form of an axe that she swung hard at my lower right side. I resisted the instinctive urge to slip into shadow-state, stepping into the swing instead to catch the handle against my hip rather than the blade, turning away from the incoming blow to cushion it. In the same motion, I drove the flat of my palm up to hit the bitch in the chin.

Or that's what should have happened anyway. Instead, I felt hands catch hold of both of my arms as the axe transformed into the other girl standing directly behind me. She caught my arms and, before I could react, her blue-clad sister punched me in the face. Fuck. Ow. Yeah, they definitely knew how to fight.

Over the girl's shoulder, I saw Dauntless, Triumph, and all three versions of Prism in the middle of a fight with that bald guy in the ugly costume. I already knew he was some kind of brute, which meant getting hit by him was a bad idea. Unfortunately, the guy managed to catch Dauntless with a glancing backhand that sent him tumbling. Weirdly, I saw the hole in the pavement where the superstrong creep had punched before suddenly widen as if he'd struck it again even though nobody was near it.

My confusion was answered a second later as the guy spun around and punched a nearby wall. Not only did his fist go _through_ that wall, but I saw the hole in the pavement widen yet again. And, more importantly, Dauntless suddenly gave a loud cry and doubled over. There was a dent in his armor.

Triumph tried to throw himself in the way, letting out a shout that sent the brute stumbling backwards a few steps. Yet even then, all the guy had to do was lash out with his hand. He punched through the nearby wall, ripping some of the bricks out. Nearly identical damage appeared around the first hole that he'd put into the wall, and Dauntless's armor took even more punishment as the man gave another cry of pain. Obviously, whatever this guy's power was, he wasn't just an average brute. He didn't only do damage to the thing he was hitting, he did the same kind of damage to the last _several_ things he'd hit. So even if he only managed to barely graze someone with a light tap once, he could turn and punch a wall a few times and it'd be like he was hitting the first target over and over again. That, uh, sucked.

But I didn't have time to think about that. My focus had to be on dealing with **these** complete bitches. Before the blue one could hit me again, I lashed out with a kick. And struck empty air, since the god damn piece of shit fucking cunt shifted into a mace just in time for the red one to shove me out of the way and catch hold of her sister. Then she was swinging the newly-formed weapon at me from behind.

Then... one of Aisha's imps, one made of copper, took a running leap and crashed into the swinging mace, knocking it off course long enough for me to recover. I used the time to spin myself into a kick that knocked the mace (with the imp attached) out of the red-clothed girl's hand and sent it flying away. Before it could clatter to the ground, the mace transformed back into the girl. To which the copper imp promptly made what sounded suspiciously like a noise of approval as it leapt up to cling to her chest.

Right, time to deal with this- I turned to find myself facing not just the girl in red, but also half a dozen random thugs with their guns out and pointed toward me. The girl herself had the nerve to give me a quick bow, mostly consisting of a slight tilt to her shoulders and a quick head movement. Then she ran toward her sister, while the men with the guns took aim and shouted something Asian at me.

"Hinder!" Bryce's pretty much frantic voice was loud in my ear. "You have forcefields, remember?"

Oh, right. Bringing both hands up with my fingers tightly closed, I muttered a quiet curse. Then I shoved one hand straight forward while shoving the other one forward and down. My fingers spread apart in the same motion, and two manhole cover sized blue forcefields appeared, one above the other.

In the next second, the gangbangers opened fire. Most of the shots went wide because, well, gangbangers. But a few actually pinged off the glowing shields, which shimmered from each impact.

"It worked. They worked." The relief in Bryce's voice was obvious. The kid sounded pretty freaked out, like he was scared or something, which... oh. Right, his sister. He was thinking about his sister. It didn't really have anything to do with me, the kid was just remembering how his sister had been shot.

A second after the ABB fucks opened fire, Cloudkicker flew down from above, coming in behind them. A wave of her gauntlets sent more of her cloud out to form a wide bar along either side of her flying platform. Before the creeps knew what was happening, she crashed into them. The solidified cloud hit the men hard enough to knock all six to the ground with various cries of surprise and protest.

I was moving out from behind the shields even before the men started to fall. They were just starting to realize what had happened when I reached the first one. As his head lifted up, I saw his mouth open to shout a warning. I didn't speak whatever language he was trying to shout in, but whatever it was, he only managed a single word before my boot connected with his face hard enough to knock the guy back down. I don't speak any of the Asian languages, but I tend to be pretty fluent in shut the fuck up.

Even as that first blow connected, I was turning to grab hold of two more thugs, triggering the electricity in the gauntlets. They collapsed to the ground, bodies twitching and spasming.

Meanwhile, Cloudkicker had landed nearby. Two of the disoriented gang members scrambled to their feet on either side of her, each turning toward their new opponent, their guns (which they had somehow miraculously managed to hold onto) raising into position as well. Before they could actually _do_ anything with those guns, however, Cloudkicker made a quick thrusting motion with each hand, one toward each of the thugs. Two blobs of solid cloud-stuff shot out, wrapped around the guns, and ripped them out of the surprised men's hands before flying up and out of the way, far beyond their reach.

Before the suddenly-disarmed men could recover from that, I threw myself that way. My hand caught one man's extended arm and I used it as a brace to swing myself around, kicking the other man in the stomach with both feet before my weight and momentum dragged the first man off balance. As he stumbled forward, I let go, dropping into a roll against the pavement that sent me past the second man.

Cloudkicker took advantage of the first man being yanked off balance. Gesturing with one hand, she made her cloud shape itself into a fist about as big around as her entire body. The fist-cloud flew up and **plowed** into the poor dumbass, literally lifting him off the ground and carrying him about a dozen feet before it dissipated, dumping his thoroughly dazed body back onto the road where he lay and groaned.

Meanwhile, before I could do anything else about the guy in front of me that was still recovering from taking both of my feet to his gut, he was set upon by wood, rubber, and aluminum imps. The trio of little bastards leapt on the man. One caught hold of his finger and yanked it backwards until it snapped, while the second crawled to his shoulder and smacked him hard in the ear, and the third landed on his head, covered his eyes, and made a loud cackling noise of amusement while the man bellowed in pain.

In the distance, I could see the twin shapeshifting bitches scrambling to fight off a larger collection of imps. About a dozen of the freaky little things were climbing all over them, keeping the pair away from each other, and generally being a gigantic pain in their necks. Or to be accurate, a bunch of little pains. From what I could see, Aisha was actually managing to control them well enough that the girls couldn't get anywhere near each other. They were everywhere at once, reacting to everything the twins did. Considering she was _also_ devoting her attention to keeping Kanjiru busy, I was officially impressed.

Unfortunately, just as I started to take a step that way, intending to deal with the weapon-shifters while they were distracted, something else happened to draw my attention. Because of course it did.

In this particular case, the interruption came in the form of a truck barreling around the corner at full speed. I barely had time to curse before Cloudkicker sent some of her cloud under my feet. It solidified and hauled me off the ground, taking me up a second before the truck went careening through the spot where I'd just been standing. A couple of the ABB fucks were caught by surprise and barely managed to dive out of the way, one of them not quite fast enough to avoid getting clipped by the passing vehicle.

The truck was pursued around that corner second later by Armsmaster on his incredibly souped up motorcycle. The Protectorate leader drew the bike alongside the truck, glanced to them, then pulled around in front as they continued to speed down the street. He put the motorcycle directly in front of the truck, almost back to its front bumper. Then the Protectorate leader hit a button on the handle of his bike. As he did, what looked like two separate tow-lines shot out from the back of the cycle, embedding themselves in the body of the big truck.

The next bit happened so quickly I could barely follow what was going on. Armsmaster spun his motorcycle away from the truck, dropping it into a slide. In the midst of that slide,the motorcycle launched what turned out to be the opposite ends of the tow lines that had been attached to the body of the other vehicle. The lines flew out to embed themselves in the wall of a nearby building. Armsmaster brought the motorcycle expertly out of the slide and upright once more as soon as both towlines were detached from it.

An instant later, the lines snapped taut. They held solidly, and the truck was ripped around into a screaming one-eighty, metal grinding and screeching in protest. The engine sputtered twice more finally giving up.

The truck finished screaming its way to a stop, and two figures piled out, stumbling as they moved. They were wearing costumes. Which meant Capes. More capes. What the serious shit? How many capes did Lung recruit? For the love of fuck, just how low were his standards for 'Asian' becoming?!

The nearest of the new arrivals was a man in dark green body armor with a black visor covering the top half of his face. It was a simple costume, yet there was obvious resources and style behind him. His companion, on the other hand, had a 'costume' that looked much less professional. It was, essentially, a pair of jeans with a red skull painted on one of the legs, a black turtleneck, and one of those President Nixon Halloween masks that had been spray painted red, though its original appearance was still obvious. He also wore what looked like a carpenter's tool belt around his waist. Both were carrying a couple bags with the PRT logo on them. What the hell? Did they actually manage to steal something directly from the PRT building? It would explain why Armsmaster himself had been sent after them.

That realization had just occurred to me when the man in the green armor opened his mouth and screamed. And when I say he screamed, it was actually more than just a scream. The unholy noise that erupted from the cape's mouth made my hands clap themselves over my ears, and both Cloudkicker and I dropped back to the ground. Her clouds vanished without her concentration, and it was all we could do not to scream along with it. Good holy **fuck** that was loud. Jesus, I thought Triumph's shouts were powerful. This guy's scream didn't seem to pack much, if any, concussive force behind it, but it sounded like nails on a chalkboard magnified to absurd fucking levels. I wanted to rip my own ears out rather than listen to any more of it. And it wasn't just a loud noise. Through the screaming man's open mouth, a weird green mist emerged and wrapped its way around all of us like an emerald fog. It lasted for a few seconds, then faded. A second later, the awful sound was gone as well. I didn't know what that fog did, but I was willing to bet that it wasn't just checking to see if we were ticklish.

By the time we could focus again, the man and his partner were gone. They'd used the distraction to abandon their truck and had taken off. I couldn't see any sign of them, and judging from the fact that Armsmaster wasn't going after them, I was willing to bet that he didn't know where they went either.

An instant later, a new sound came through the communicator. Aisha's voice. "Move your bossy ass!"

Cloudkicker and I both flung ourselves in opposite directions, as the reason for Imp's warning became obvious considering the scattered bullets that hit the pavement where we had just been. When we landed, it had put us right near the brute in the ugly costume. He lashed out, but failed to connect before we each managed to roll out of his reach and scramble back to our feet. In my case, my roll had brought me right next to a thoroughly unconscious Dauntless. Cloudkicker, meanwhile, came up between two slightly bruised Prisms and a very badly battered Triumph who looked like he was almost out on his feet, swaying a bit back and forth like a punch drunk boxer.

"Hah," Imp sounded, if anything, even more amused than usual. "Notice how I didn't have to explain who I was talking to? You each just figured I was referring to you. Maybe that should tell you something about-"

"Imp!" I blurted. "For the love of Scion, shut-" That was as far as I got before the brute spun my way and lashed out with a punch. I jerked backwards, throwing up one of my new forcefields. Which turned out to be a bad idea. It held (barely), but even as the man's fist struck the shield itself, I saw Dauntless's unconscious form go sliding across the ground as yet another dent appeared in his armor. Simultaneously, Triumph went down, collapsing with a cry, and one of the Prisms was thrown aside like she'd been hit by a truck. Right, fuck. Fuck me. The god damn damage sharing. I couldn't just block what he was doing, because he'd keep doing damage to everyone else he hit too.

Unless... I frowned. I had a plan, but I couldn't figure out if it was a good one, or if I just didn't care about the consequences to the Protectorate heroes if it wasn't. The question was harder to answer than it had any right to be, but I shut it aside and focused. Plan now, personal bullshit later.

"Hey!" I shouted at the brute to get his attention. "Your costume's so ugly, I bet your mother sewed it for you."

Banter was harder than some people made it look, okay?. Especially on the fly. I just wanted the guy pissed off.

Luckily (though I was seriously considering revoking my own right to use that term), it worked. The brute let out a wordless bellow while flinging himself at me. I put up a shield. The guy punched almost all the way through it, and I heard collective cries from the still-conscious battered Protectorate heroine. Triumph took the damage too, his body jerking over onto its side from the force of the blow.

Except that Dauntless's poor body **didn't** take any more damage, and that was exactly what I was looking for. Resisting the urge to smirk, I shrugged. "That it? Wow, Lung's really scraping the bottom of the barrel, huh?"

The idiot threw half a dozen more punches. I put up a shield for each in turn, and within a couple blows, none of the other people were reacting. I counted it out in my head. Four. Four blows. Anything he hit, it affected the previous three things he'd struck as well. If all four of those things were completely replaceable forcefields? Well, then he was wasting his time.

Prism, however, wasn't. I saw her say something to Cloudkicker, who nodded and started creating more of her cloud. While the brute was punching his way through two more of my shields, the cloud rose up around him, then covered his eyes. The man let out a frustrated yell, cursing about what he was going to do to us.

All three Prisms came at the suddenly blinded man. At the last second, they reformed into a single one, and the Protectorate's second-in-command lashed out with a temporarily superhuman punch. Her fist disappeared into the cloud around the man's face, connecting with so much force the man's head was knocked out of the cloud. Muse put it back before he could even think about recovering, let alone retaliating.

They split into three again, surrounding the blinded man while waiting for an opening in his wild flailing. As soon as one appeared, the three figures merged once more before delivering a kick that sent the man flailing backwards into a wall. He nearly landed a glancing blow in retaliation that time, but I managed to throw a shield in the way.

That went on for another few rounds like that. Prism kept splitting and reforming, using her temporary super strength to actually damage the brute, while Cloudkicker kept him blind, and I kept him from actually hitting anything important.

Finally, the big guy stumbled, shook his head like he was trying to clear it, then collapsed.

"Thank... Scion," Prism muttered, bending over to catch her breath. "And thank you."

"Yes," the voice came from behind me, and I turned to find Armsmaster there. "It looks like you and your... team were useful. What did you say you called yourselves?"

"I—Normandy," I managed, turning after answering his question. "Imp, you okay? Where are those damn twins?"

"I'm fine," Aisha replied, stepping into view with a dozen of her imps all around her. "They broke a few of my buddies and ran away like chickenshits before I could remake them. They took Even More Gay Tuxedo Mask with them."

"Tanzanite and Almandite," Armsmaster informed us. "And Kanjiru. They're long gone. And so are Vociferous and Junkdrawer." He sounded annoyed.

"But we have Bulgasari," Prism pointed out, nodding to the collapsed brute from where she was kneeling next to the still-unconscious Triumph, cradling his head gently. "And Oni Lee."

I saw a very slight smile appear on Armsmaster's face at that reminder, and he gave a little nod before touching something on his helmet. "I need medical attention for Triumph, Dauntless, and assorted non-cape criminals. I also need a pick-up for Oni Lee and Bulgasari, and a medical once over for both of them once they're fully secure."

Finally, the man directed his attention to us, speaking gruffly. "Hinder, I heard you say your name was?"

Oh boy. Okay, I knew that Armsmaster had a lie detector. He'd used it before. Now I just had to be careful about exactly how I phrased things.

"That's what I'm calling myself," I replied.

He looked me up and down. "And you're the tinker then?"

I made myself chuckle as casually as possible. "Not a lot of other ways to get all these toys."

"How long have you been active for?"

Shrugging at that, I thought quickly for how to answer it safely. Then I had it. "Imp," I nodded that way. "How long has it been since we met? I think I'd call that my first official night out like this."

Aisha returned the shrug dismissively. "Shit, I dunno, dude. A couple weeks?"

"We heard something about a smaller team starting up, but we weren't sure if you were just passing through, or making this place a permanent spot." Armsmaster looked at me, obviously considering his words. "So which is it? And what are your goals?"

"We're planning to be here for a good long while," I answered easily that time. "And mostly we just want to kick the crap out of whatever's left of the Empire or whatever they're calling themselves now, the ABB, and any other spinoff gang that make themselves into targets. We're on your side."

The man continued to stare at me for another few seconds in silence. It was enough to make me uncomfortable, and I was about to say something else when he finally inclined his head in acceptance.

"All right," he agreed. "Then I think we just have a few more questions about what happened here tonight, for the official record. And if you don't mind, I'd like to set up a time in the future to chat about your designs, maybe see if we can help each other out. You'll find that getting an outside opinion about the work you do sometimes helps. Even if we can't build off each other's work, just talking it out with another tinker can be useful. But other than that, all I can say is... thanks for showing up. You helped a lot tonight. And in a city like this, being willing to come out here, put yourselves on the line just to help people, just to do the right thing, just to do what needs to be done, all of that means a lot."

His head turned toward me then, his expression unreadable. "It means a hell of a lot."

 **10-09 – Emma**

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

There was no sense of disorientation, or even movement. No actual physical reaction to being teleported at all, really. One second we were standing in that gas station parking lot with Aequitas and Wander—excuse me, Princess Wander , and in the next, we were suddenly... somewhere else.

I was ready. Before the teleportation had even happened, as soon as I'd confirmed that we were ready, I began to take a long, deep breath. The instant I realized we were in a new place, and before everyone managed to situate themselves, I finished the breath and held it while flipping the switch on my power.

That familiar, somehow comforting by this point, red haze settled over the world. Only then did I let myself actually look around to see where the little girl had teleported us to. Because like hell was I going to just blindly believe that this mysterious 'boss' of Lisa's was some benevolent force that we could actually trust. Not after she'd been so obviously reluctant to put us in direct contact with him.

With time frozen, I glanced at the rest of my team (including Judas and Brutus) just long enough to confirm that they all looked fine, then turned my attention to the rest of the room, and the people in it.

We were in a very large, open room with two tiers. We were standing on the lower tier in an area that looked a lot like a loading dock with crates of supplies all around, and when I looked up, I could see men frozen in mid-step all along a metal walkway. The walls as well as the floor under our feet were made of concrete, and there were various doorways on both levels leading into other parts of the base.

More importantly, the figure standing a few feet away from us, flanked by four of his mercenaries, was instantly recognizable. Considering his reclusive nature, he might not have been a few months ago before I really paid much attention to the cape scene, but now I knew exactly who he was. Coil. Coil was our big, mysterious boss, the man that Lisa had been so afraid to put us into contact with.

Nobody knew much about the man. Whether he even had powers at all or not was constantly being debated, though the most common acceptance of his power, if he had one, was either precognition or some kind of luck manipulation. Things just seemed to work out for the snake-themed villain, from not showing up to meetings that ended up being ambushed by the PRT, to his mercenaries pulling off surprising wins against long odds that no sane person would have subjected them to to begin with unless they knew they were going to win. The people who were against the idea of him having powers claimed that all this could be accomplished by him having spies inside the PRT, but others said that having that many spies at that high of a level was impossible, and that it had to be a power.

I wasn't sure who was right, but I did know that the man was dangerous. Of all the villains that I'd read up on to familiarize myself with the cape scene, Coil was the one who actually scared me the most. There were plenty of dangerous bad guys (and girls) in the city. But most of _their_ powers, skills, attitudes, strengths, and (more importantly) weaknesses were well documented. They were a known quantity. Scary in their own right, but manageable with the right forethought. But Coil? He was practically a blank slate. Aside from the fact that he was very, very successful, and that he'd somehow managed to pull all this off, taking over a good portion of the city and then _**holding it**_ against the Empire. That took power, regardless of if he was a cape or not. It took a very, incredibly dangerous man that I absolutely could not let myself underestimate. Not if I wanted to survive, and get my team out from under the man's thumb. Which I was going to do, because they were my team. Not his.

While keeping time frozen, I walked away from the spot where I had been teleported in, approaching the snake-man. For a moment, I stopped directly in front of him. I stood there, staring into the abnormally thin man's eyes through the mask that he wore. I stared, and asked myself what I was going to have to do to make him release the hold he had over my friends. How far was I going to have to go to make sure this man didn't have his claws in any of us anymore? And could I actually do it?

Eventually, I stepped away from the man and looked at the group that was assembled around him. Not only did he have four of his mercenaries, but there were two capes there as well. The first I recognized as Chariot, one of Coil's known cape minions. The other I didn't know. He wore a costume that consisted of dark red, almost black body armor, with glowing gold lines running up the leg and over the chest in a loop. There was a high tech looking gun holstered on his right hip, and a sword on his left.

Further back, on the far end of the room, I could see Trainwreck. The big, armored guy was helping another group of mercs unload more crates from what looked like one of those big shipping containers.

Walking around in a circle through this area, I checked everyone's posture. They were clearly at attention and wary, but nobody seemed like they were getting ready to immediately shoot us. The guns that the mercs with Coil had were slung over their shoulders, and Chariot wasn't even looking our way.

Finally as satisfied as I could be that we weren't about to be ambushed, I walked back to the spot we had teleported in at. We'd done some experiments, and the closer I was to where I'd started the time freeze when I came out of it, the smaller the red flash I made was when time started up again. If I was right on top of the same spot I'd been when it started, the flash was pretty much unnoticeable. Positioning myself exactly the way I'd been before using my power (hey look, a modeling skill that actually came in handy), I gulped in air, releasing time so that it could progress.

Pretending to look around for the first time along with the others, I let my gaze pass over the people above, then centered on the figure in front of us. My head inclined, and it wasn't hard to put a squeak into my voice. Just enough to sound like someone who was surprised and trying to hide it. "Coil?"

His mask moved a little, as if he was smiling. "Good evening, Undersiders. It's good to meet you."

"Wait," Regent shook his head in confusion. "You're the guy holding the purse strings? I mean, not literally. Unless walking around with a purse is something you're into, which, with your figure, you-"

"Regent," I interrupted sharply without looking away from the man. "Shut up." Focusing fully on Coil, I took a step that way, putting myself in front of the others. "I thought you already had a cape team."

"There are several teams in my employ," his reply came easily, gesturing toward Aequitas and Wander with one hand and Chariot and the other cape with the other. "The Undersiders are among them."

He looked at Aequitas. "Thank you. We'll let you know when the Undersiders are ready to leave."

"Anything for the cause of freedom, Coil," Captain Whackmerica replied. "Just remember, you keep doing your part to prepare for the revolution, and we'll keep running these little errands for you."

I swear I could actually _see_ the man's eyes roll. "Of course. I believe the rest of your team is waiting in your quarters. They had some questions that I assured them you were more suited to answering."

"Mr. Coil?" Princess Wander piped up, waving to him excitedly. "Can I play with Wyvern, sir?"

While I was trying to figure out who she could be talking about, Coil shook his head slightly. "I'm afraid I need to have Wyvern chat with our new friends here for awhile first, Princess."

You know what? I knew the girl insisted on having the Princess added to her name. I knew she'd even refused to do what her father said until used the name. I knew it was her choice. But honestly? Hearing Coil call that little girl Princess **still** made my skin crawl and gave me the urge to punch him. Hard.

Without wasting another moment, the man turned on his heel. The quartet of mercenaries on either side of him separated to give us room to follow him. "Come with me, there are things we should discuss."

First, I gave the others a quick glance. Tattletale was looking at Coil, her expression as blank as she could make it, yet I could see little worry lines on her forehead. Nimue and Regent were glancing around curiously, taking in everything, while Bitch just looked like she wanted to leave (both her dogs just looked excited to be somewhere new, moving their noses around to sniff curiously). And Alloy... he was staring at Coil. Like, directly staring, as if he didn't want to take his eyes off the man for a second.

Nodding for the team to follow, I breathed out and began to trail after the already moving Coil. No sense in second guessing myself now. I'd insisted that we meet with the big boss, and here we were.

"Chariot," Coil spoke crisply, "go inform Squads Fish and Trill that they're up next. Dazed, check with Squad Nora to find out what their scouting mission turned up. I want full details before they rest."

Both Chariot and the guy in the red costume moved, so I guess I knew what the latter's name was now.

Walking together, we followed Coil through the base to a doorway at the far end, passing Trainwreck and the group he was working with on the way. Just before we passed through the doorway, I took another breath and held it while turning on my power again. Like fuck was I walking in here blind.

The room that I slipped past the frozen Coil to get into looked fairly normal. It was an outer office with a man wearing a sweater and glasses sitting behind the desk, frozen in the act of typing on the computer that sat in front of him. A short hallway behind the desk led to three doors. The one on the left was open, revealing a simple bathroom. The ones on the right and straight ahead, meanwhile, were closed.

I chose the door straight ahead first, poking my head through to see a rather luxurious office on the other side. Okay, it was obviously Coil's, and was probably where he was bringing us. The door on the right probably led to a storage room full of files or something. But just in case, I looked anyway.

It wasn't a storage room. The first thing I saw were all the computer monitors. The walls were absolutely covered in them. There were dozens of monitors all around the room, literally covering every inch of space on the three walls that the door wasn't attached to. The time-frozen screens of the monitors showed news reports, documentaries, home videos, security camera footage, and more. There were even some screens that were obviously taken from webcams of unaware subjects. Some of it was hard to really tell what the screen was showing because of the red filter over my vision, but still. We had officially upped the creep factor by about ten thousand percent. And that was before I saw the girl.

She was standing directly in the middle of the room, but the array of screens was so distracting that I'd missed her at first. I stepped over, looking at the girl directly. She looked so small standing there surrounded by all those screens. At first glance, I guessed her age at around ten or eleven. She had short brown hair, and these wide, earnest green eyes that were staring at the screens before her. At one screen in particular, actually. Turning to follow the direction of her gaze, I saw the one monitor in the bottom left corner of the room that was showing something different from all the others, an episode of _Animaniacs._

I was... disturbed and confused. But I was also running out of time. Keeping my breath held, I quickly left the room and ran back to my spot. Resuming my place and position, I let time to back to normal.

"Mr. Pitter," Coil spoke as we came into the room, and the guy with the glasses looked up promptly from his computer. "How's our special guest in the subbasement doing with her little project?"

"Complaining about not having everything she needs," the man (Mr. Pitter apparently) replied. "She made another shopping list, and insists that she cannot complete the project until she gets all of it. I've run the numbers and we'll need an additional twenty-seven thousand to collect it all quietly and quickly. Twenty-seven and a half if we provide all of the M&M's and Mountain Dew that she's insisting on."

"Do it," Coil instructed. "I want her happy, and I want her productive. But make it clear that this is the last time she will see the carrot. If we find out that she's stalling, the next step is to use the stick."

That... whatever it was done, he led us down the short hall. At the end, he opened the middle door into his office and gestured for us to go inside. "Come, I'd like to discuss the next job that I have in mind."

We moved into the office, with me trying as hard as I could not to look at the other door. I was afraid that if I so much as glanced that way, Coil would immediately know that I had seen what was in there.

Bitch and her dogs immediately took up position in the left corner of the room furthest away from the ornate metal desk, while Nimue and Regent moved to the right. Alloy, Tattletale, and I stood in the middle of the room, watching Coil step over to his desk.

"I've been paying attention to the news about your team," the man began almost conversationally. "Saving those hostages, helping to take the Merchants out of play, you've impressed the public."

"Not the direction you wanted your personal gofer villains to go in?" That was Nimue, and I shot her a quick glance. The magician-tinker was leaning against the nearby wall, her posture completely relaxed.

Coil gave his head a slight shake while leaning back in his expensive leather chair. "On the contrary, I'm rather pleased with this development overall. That's why you're standing here, after all."

I didn't miss the fact that 'standing here' could mean being allowed inside the base to meet him, or still being alive to stand at all.

"You're glad a lot of the public thinks we're basically Robin Hood right now?" I asked carefully.

The man gave a brief nod. "Yes. That 'Robin Hood' impression, as you put it, is something we need to cultivate right now, while we have the chance. Which is why I've chosen your next job so carefully."

Tattletale said nothing. Her expression was unreadable when I glanced toward her briefly before looking back to the snake-man. "The next job?"

"Indeed," he straightened up a bit, tapping a button on his computer. A screen on the nearby wall lit up, showing a picture of the Ebony Estates, the most expensive hotel in the city. I'd actually been inside the place once, for a conference meeting that my dad had to go to. The place was ridiculously lavish.

"Dude, if that's our new base, you must be _really_ pleased with our work." Regent cut in, making me want to strangle him while stamping the words 'shut up around the murderous psychopath' repeatedly into his forehead.

Coil stared at him for a moment, long enough for me to think it was time to cut our losses and run for it. Then he just chuckled. "I'm afraid not, Regent. That might be a little less of a secret than we'd prefer your location be. No, this is your target. In two days, the mayor is hosting a fundraising party here. All of his richest and most powerful friends, the movers and shakers of Brockton Bay, will be there. You are going to show up and rob them. And then you're going to give half of what you take to the poor. Specifically, the homeless population that congregate around the docks."

Tattletale finally spoke up. "That place is going to be crawling with cops and PRT, boss. Probably at least a couple capes too. We won't make it ten feet without them calling down every hero in the city on us."

"They may try," Coil replied. "But they will be at a severe disadvantage." Reaching out to his computer again, he tapped another button and spoke a bit louder. "Wyvern, come into the office, please. I'd like you to meet our new friends."

A moment later, the little girl that I'd seen in the other room stepped through the doorway. Her head tilted a little, taking all of us in before she spoke politely. "Hello. My name is Wyvern."

"Do you have anything to report, pet?" Coil asked. That crawling sensation I'd had earlier was back in full force.

"Three public mentions of you," the girl answered in what sounded like a strange tone of voice for a little girl. "One parody news show blamed you for an unliked snake-skin dress an actress wore to an award show last night. Two others genuine news reports concerning your actions in the wake of the dissolution of the Empire Eighty-Eight organization. One private mention of you inside the PRT building. Lieutenant Ecks had a conversation with Director Piggot concerning your acquisition of the device."

"Thank you, pet," Coil's slimy voice spoke again. "Now, these good people are concerned about the job I have for them. Would you assist me in allaying those fears?"

In answer, the little brown-haired girl reached up... and took her own head off.

A strangled, shocked noise escaped not just me, but several of the others. Only Tattletale didn't look that surprised.

"I'm all right." The voice came from the... the head. Wyvern's eyes were looking at us earnestly, and her hands turned the head over to show us the bottom of it.

Wires. Circuits. Computer parts. More advanced than any computer parts I'd ever seen, but computer parts nonetheless.

"You're a—you're... a... a... robot," Alloy blurted, sounding as shocked as I felt.

"An artificial intelligence within the body of an android," Coil confirmed, standing from his chair. "One created by the two most powerful and famous tinkers in the world."

It took me a second to tear my gaze away from the girl standing there with her head in her hands. "... Dragon... and Hero? She was... she was **built** by Dragon and Hero?"

Oh dear fuck. This little girl was a... a robot, an android? One built by Dragon and Hero, with the name of Wyvern? They practically named her after Dragon herself, for Scion's sake. Fuck, fuck, fuck! He was insane. They were going to find us and throw us all in the god damn Birdcage for messing with her!

"Yes," Coil nodded while I was freaking out, stepping around to lay his hand on her shoulder. "You can put your head back on now," he instructed before looking back to the rest of us. "My dear Wyvern here is the most advanced artificial intelligence on the planet. She was created in conjunction by both Dragon and Hero as a test, a prototype for further artificial soldiers. We... appropriated her during transit, and she has been thoroughly reprogrammed to ensure her obedience. She is going to ensure that you are not captured. She is capable of accessing every security system, every camera, every radio, every phone, everything in that hotel that could alert the authorities to what is happening. She will shut down the alarms, she will ensure that no extra capes are called, she will make certain that nothing stops you from taking everything from the mayor and his friends aside from the clothes on their backs."

"Uhh, umm," I cleared my throat, trying to get over the sight even as Wyvern put her head back on. "Even with help, that's still a risk. You're rolling the dice that we can pull it off."

"Nonsense," Coil retorted, his eyes locked on mine. "I assure you, I don't take steps like this until I'm absolutely certain that success is guaranteed.

"I abhor gambling."

 **Interlude 10A - PHO**

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 **Topic: Faultline's Crew  
In: Boards ► Teams ► Mercenaries  
CenturionDream **(Original Poster)  
Posted On Aug 12th 2010:  
Time for a new thread on this group, since the last one was getting pretty long. Don't worry, I checked with the mods, and this is kosher.

Use this thread for any further discussion about Faultline and her team of mercs. Sorry, we still don't have a better name for them than 'Faultline's Crew.' Kind of sad, but ehh.

Team leader:  
Faultline - Destroys non-living material by touching it. Striker.

Members:

Gregor The Snail - Case 53, Generates liquids of various effects (Adhesives, Acid, Fire Retardant Foam, etc) that are propelled through his skin. Blaster, Minor Brute.

Labyrinth - Alters the landscape around herself. Can create walls, statues, new landscapes, even complex structures. Limitations are not very understood. Very powerful Shaker. Edit: Possible link between her powers and new cape Ariadne.

Mockshow - Animates inanimate objects, generally vehicles, traffic signs, park benches, anything found out in public. Usually gives her animated objects animal-like behavior and actions. Shaker/Master.

Shamrock - Powers appear to be luck-based, though others disagree. More data needed to be certain.

Ariadne - Many arguments over what this new cape's powers are. Tentative assignment of high thinker for combat-applied precognition and a possible, though unconfirmed mover ability for teleportation.

Former Members:

Newter - Case 53 with incredible agility and balance, possible wall-crawling ability, and bodily fluids that are powerful hallucinogenics. - Confirmed Deceased.

Spitfire - Breathes fire, and possibly controls it afterward. - Confirmed Deceased.

 **(Showing page 78 of 78)**

► **Jusanuff**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:

Dupris Supreme

You're entitled to be upset, just keep it to the appropriate thread and everything'll be fine. What gets people worked up is when you start blaming other teams for what the Slaughterhouse Nine does. It's not Faultline or her team's fault the Nine attacked the Gladiators right after her team beat them. For all we know, the Nine were going to attack anyway.

Trinket, Clearcut, and Depthcharge deserve to be remembered and honored. You don't do that by going into another team thread, even a merc team, and picking a fight just because that team fought yours recently. Don't forget, this team lost members recently too. Maybe it wasn't anything like the Nine, and they haven't broken up like the Gladiators, but still.

► **Dupris Supreme**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:

You're right. I'm sorry, guys. I let things get way off topic there. Seriously, you have my sincere apologies. I just get a little worked up when it comes to those murdering assholes. Sorry for hijacking the thread to rant about them. And thanks to those who talked me down. I needed it.

Anyway, on topic, is there anyone who still thinks Ariadne and Labyrinth aren't a couple? Seriously. My gaydar exploded into rainbows when I pointed it at them.

► **bendy358**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:

Does it matter if they are? I swear, some people get way too obsessed with talking about cape's personal lives. Let's talk about what matters. Namely, what are the Crew going to do now? They've been pretty quiet since the fight with the Nazis. What do you guys think, are they going to go after the rest of the assholes that helped kill Newter and Spitfire?

► **Eternal Party Crasher**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:

Dupris Supreme

I'm pretty sure they're just friends/partners. It would be sweet though. Labyrinth seems lonely. I dunno, she just gives off a vibe.

bendy358

Pretty sure it's a matter of when, not if. There's no way Faultline'll let that stand. And if they get Ariadne in a room with those creeps, it's all over.

Do we have **any** more info about what her powers are, by the way? Other than god-mode awesomeness, I mean.

► **behindthemoss**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

bendy358

Pretty sure nobody's verified anything. Precog power seems like a safe bet. Suppose it could be something else thinker-related though.

Be pretty funny if she wasn't actually a cape at all, just that badass. Besides the teleportation (still say that could be a tinker-thing or something) has she demonstrated any other obvious powers that aren't _potentially_ explainable with human skill?

► **Ficsy**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

behindthemoss

Look at the videos from Vegas again. NO ONE could drive like that. I don't care how skilled you are. That's a power. Precognition, it has to be. Nothing else makes sense, and you'll never convince me it does. She's a combat-precog or something so similar it might as well be the same thing.

What about Mockshow, guys? You can go on about how cool Ariadne is all you want (and she is), but Mockshow's my new favorite. I mean, come on, she can animate a semi truck and ride on top of it into battle like a war elephant! That's awesome!

► **DeviantMime**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Dupris Supreme

The topic about your favorite team might not be so off-topic after all. Someone said they saw Oneway and Flyby in Brockton Bay. Maybe they're coming to settle the score with the Crew? You know, since going after the Nine is suicide.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 76, 77, 78**

 **Topic: Travelers  
In: Boards ► Teams ► Mercenaries  
Caspian Dictator **(Original Poster)  
Posted On Mar 1st 2011:

Fresh, new thread time! Let's fill up this thread with all kinds of stuff about the bounty hunting cape team that calls themselves the Travelers. Where will they go next? Will the PRT officially deputize them? Will people stop calling Myriad 'Oscar'? Discuss!

Team leader:

Aevum - Super speed of some kind. Mover.

Myriad - Case 53 with super strength, toughness, and durability related to her golden form. Also duplicates herself, limits unknown. Brute and Master.

Entropy - Disrupt the trajectory of any object entering his area of effect. Shaker.

Tag - Teleports himself and others with unknown limitations. Mover.

Paracosm - No idea. Seriously, people who have encountered her say she transports them into some other world where she has complete control, but we have no idea how true that is, if it's a hallucination, or what. Paracosm herself appears to be wheelchair-bound. Some people insist on calling what she does telepathy.

Possible sixth member who has never demonstrated any powers, and may simply be a driver.

Former Members:

Deimos - Manifests physical manifestations of what people are afraid of. Joined the Slaughterhouse Nine.

 **(Showing page 18 of 18)**

► **King Broohaahaa**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Dandyfan

Well I don't see any other reason why they'd be here in Brockton Bay. The mayor's niece gets kidnapped and they show up almost immediately. They weren't here for any of those big fights, and they haven't left yet. Why? Because they haven't finished their job. They're here to find Dinah Alcott, because the mayor hired them.

► **FreeTheThinkers**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

King Broohaahaa

If the mayor did call them in, that's pretty much a slap in the face to the Protectorate, the PRT, the police, everyone. He's calling in outside mercs to find his niece? Why should any of us think the heroes can do their job when even the mayor doesn't believe it?

► **GathererOfLand** (Veteran Member)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

FreeTheThinkers

I don't think that's a fair assessment. The Travelers have worked with the PRT plenty of times. This isn't an unusual situation. It's not like he hired a bunch of villains or something. Just because the mayor wants to give them help doesn't mean he doesn't believe in them.

And the Travelers haven't been able to find the Alcott girl either.

► **Paracosm** (Verified Cape)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

We're definitely not trying to step on any toes around here, guys! We like to work **with** the authorities, not against them. We're not at liberty to talk about our purpose here, because our client wants it that way. But I promise, we are doing our best to work alongside the heroes in every way that we can.

► **King Broohaahaa**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Paracosm

Don't you dare run away without explaining what your power is!

Edit: Paracosm! Paracosm! Get back here and... I think she's gone, guys. :(

► **Avery's Friend**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
King Broohaahaa

Did you expect anything else? Paracosm posts all the time, but she never answers questions about her power except with jokes. Clearly she doesn't want to explain it. It's probably safe that way. You do know that villains can read these threads too, right?

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 16, 17, 18**

 **Topic: Brockton Bay Brigade - General Thread  
In: Boards ► Teams ► Brockton Bay Teams  
Seraph **(Original Poster) (Verified Cape)  
Posted On Feb 5th 2011:

We know you love us, because how could you not? We're pretty damn awesome. You guys can post any more questions or compliments in this thread now, since we blew up the old one, muahaha!

Love you guys, lemme know how we can help.

Mod Edit: Here is the Brockton Bay Brigade team list.

Team Leader:

Lady Photon - Flight, lasers, forcefields. Shaker/blaster/mover.

Manpower - Superstrength and durability. Brute.

Brandish - Manifests melee weapons made of solid energy, and can shift herself into an invulnerable, but immobile ball of light. Striker/changer.

Flashbang - Creates balls of light that explode. Blaster.

Fleur - Creates flower images on objects that she touches, and can then magnify or decrease the damage done to that object, and share the damage with every other object marked by the same flower image. Striker.

Seraph - Creates and controls solid light constructs. Often covers herself in her own light constructs to change what she looks like, and to make herself tougher. Shaker/Master/Brute/Stranger/Changer/Mover.

Shielder - Lasers, flight, and forcefields (emphasis on forcefields, weak at everything else). Blaster/mover/shaker.

Panacea - Makes concoctions that heal or provide other temporary powers like brute effects, among others. Tinker.

Laserdream - Flight, lasers, forcefields with an emphasis on lasers and flight, weak forcefields. Mover/blaster/shaker.

Archive - She seems to be able to absorb objects that come within a certain distance of her, and later project that object back out again. Other powers are hypothetical and unconfirmed, but will be added here if verified.

Former members:

Lightstar - Generated balls of light that he could detonate at will to cause concussive damage. - Confirmed deceased

 **(Showing page 82 of 82)**

► **Yelvin**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:  
DamageUncontrolled

Get out. Seriously. We don't need or want your paranoid agenda over here. The fight at the farm wasn't some false flag operation, and the Protectorate is **not** hiding capes and reporting them as dead just to stock up some kind of anti-endbringer army. That's absurd, and it's a slap in the face to the rest of the deceased cape's grieving team members and their families. Just shut up and leave it alone.

Anyway, now that Laserdream and Archive are safe, do you guys think they'll go out in the field any time soon? And did we ever settle on what to call the Shielder/Archive ship?

► **Tripsemup**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:

Yelvin

I think people generally settled on Locker for that one. I prefer Laserdream/Archive though. They were captured for a long time, what are the odds they didn't bond a lot during that? What can we call that ship?

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:  
Tripsemup

(Post Edited By Mod To Remove Inappropriate Content - Reminder, you are talking about at least one minor, if not two. Keep it respectful. User has been banned for one week for this post.)

► **Lenadepth**  
Replied On May 4th 2011:  
XxVoid_CowboyxX

Dude, delete that bit. The mods are gonna jump on your ass. I dunno about Laserdream, but I'm pretty damn sure Archive's a minor. Even if they weren't, that's pretty crude shit to write on PHO.

Yeesh. Anyway, I'm pretty sure DamageUncontrolled is just a troll at this point. Ignore them. As for Archive and Laserdream getting back into the field, I think we'll see them both really soon.

► **JimmyBSane**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

I'm late for this, and I know it doesn't matter, but the Brigade has my condolences for their loss. I know I said some critical things about Lightstar in the past, but the man was a hero, and I for one would like to extend my thanks for everything he did, even if I didn't appreciate it at the time. I will try to remember this moment in the future any time I feel like criticizing other capes.

► **89th Firebird**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Lenadepth

Guess you were right, Archive and Laserdream are out with Shielder and Seraph. I watched them from the roof of my apartment. They're definitely patrolling, though I don't think they'll run into anything on this side of towen.

Edit: I was wrong! Big fight going on two blocks away. I'll try to upload some pictures if I can get close enough.

► **Yelvin**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Really? Damn, dude. Is that the fight between the Protectorate, the ABB, and that unknown team?

► **Jusanuff**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

Yelvin

We have a name for that team now. Someone got close enough to hear them talking to the Protectorate. They're called Normandy. Someone should probably set up a thread for them.

Edit: done!

Anyway, looking forward to pictures. I haven't been able to get a good mental image of how Archive's powers work. It'd be nice to see photos. Or video if 89th Firebird can manage it.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 80, 81, 82**

 **Topic: Empire 88 Defeated  
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay  
Mama Bear **(Original Poster) (Moderator)  
Posted On Apr 25th 2011:  
Use this thread to discuss the fight between the Empire 88, the Brockton Bay Brigade, the Protectorate, Faultline's Crew, and elements of Gesellschaft that took place at the farmhouse just outside Brockton Bay. Inappropriate or disrespectful comments about the deceased will be removed and the user will be banned. Please keep the discussion civil.

Here is the final tally. Any additional updates must be verified through the PRT.

Deceased: Spitfire, Newter, Fog, Lightstar, Kaiser  
Captured: Cricket, Victor, Logi, Stormtiger, Dellingr, Rache, Teiwaz.

 **(Showing page 42 of 42)**

► **Legend's Sensei**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

Okay, so did any of the Gessesl... gesseghn... G-Squad capes from Germany stay in town after all that went down? Besides the ones that got arrested, I mean. Are they part of Hookwolf's new Fenrir's Chosen team?

Oh, and did we ever get confirmation about whose side the Faithful were on during that fight?

► **The New Pythia** (Unverified Cape)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Legend's Sensei

They were helping the heroes. Iron Rain and Purity hated Kaiser as much as anyone else, if not more.

Hookwolf's team doesn't include any Gesellschaft members, but they're still in town. They won't leave until they at least try to break their teammates out.

► **BenitoDorito**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
The New Pythia

You seem to know an awful lot about the Faithful, or you're just making it all up. Which is it?

And why haven't they just sent those Nazi bastards into the Birdcage yet?

► **The New Pythia** (Unverified Cape)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
BenitoDorito

I know what the Faithful were doing because I'm part of their team. ;)

They can't lock up the Gesellschaft capes until they have a trial, and they can't have a trial until the German, American, and Canadian governments come to an agreement about extradition and sentencing.

► **TeamTeenTon**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
The New Pythia

Ew, you're one of those Nazi creeps? I can't believe I actually had a conversation with you yesterday. Gross. So much for believing anything you say.

► **Mama Bear** (Original Poster) (Moderator)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
If you guys want to talk about the Faithful as a team or any of their members, you should visit this thread instead of talking about it here.

The New Pythia - See this thread for rules about verifying your identity.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 40, 41, 42**

 **Topic: Undersiders - General Discussion  
In: Boards ► Teams ► Villains  
SellerOfSausage **(Original Poster)  
Posted On Feb 10th 2011:  
I figured these guys might as well have a thread of their own, even if they're not that big of a deal yet. They've started to pull off some higher profile jobs. Let's get down to it.

Team leader:

Redshift - Teleportation, Mover.

Tattletale - We think her power has to do with learning people's secrets. Some say telepath, but that's unverified, just like all other supposed telepaths. Thinker.

Hellhound - Transforms canines into huge monsters. Master. Dogs have brute and mover classifications.

Regent - Minor body control, limited to reflexive movements like twitching, tripping, gesturing, and so on. Master.

Nimue - Makes real life magic tricks that seem to actually work. Tinker.

Alloy - Turns into metal and then grows and shrinks. Unknown limitations. Brute/Changer

Former Members:

Grue - Creates a fog of disorienting darkness that dampens other senses as well. Joined the Wards as Veil.

 **(Showing page 65 of 65)**

► **Avery's Friend**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Whether you guys decide you like the Undersiders or not, the mods aren't going to move the thread out of the villains category. Because, news flash, they're still villains. They're still breaking the law, whether they're doing good things too or not.

It is kind of funny that their old leader joins the Wards, and it's the REST of the team that everyone starts seeing as more heroic though.

WriterOfStuff

Whatever Tattletale does, it can't be telepathy. There's never been a single verified example of literal telepathy. It's always something else.

DominicDoren

Wow! that's pretty cool, did your uncle get to say anything to them? I mean, sorry he was taken by the Merchants, but you said he's fine now so... did he talk to any of the Undersiders?

► **Whimsy**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
All I'm saying is that usually, people who rescue hostages are considered heroes. At the very least, we should put them in the mercenary forum or something. Yeah, they've done some bad stuff, but so have a lot of the teams in that forum and they get a little more leeway.

But to contribute more than just beating my head against that wall, here's a link to some pictures that someone took of Redshift and the rest of the Undersiders hanging around an old gas station with a couple of that cape team that call themselves the People. The guy that took the pictures says it was some kind of secret meeting, and they teleported away. Pretty cool!

► **DominicDoren**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Avery's Friend

I'll ask him, but he's pretty out of it at the moment. He has good days and bad days. And he's one of the better ones. Some of the people the Merchant's took are still totally fucked up. :/ Makes me wish I had powers. I'd go kick the shit out of those druggy fucks.

Whimsy

Ugh, I hope the Undersiders aren't friends with that Aequitas dude. Have you heard the guy talk? He's one of those sovereign citizen freaks. I bet some of those kids he's running around with are his. Can you imagine being raised by that kind of crazy?

► **Olendooel**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
 **Post deleted by mod - inappropriate discussion. User has been permanently banned. Villains or not, you do not request those kind of pictures of any cape, let alone ones that are most likely minors.**

► **WriterOfStuff**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:

Uuuuuhhhkay, to ignore that and hope the mods deal with it quickly... -_-

Avery's Friend

Of course telepathy hasn't been confirmed, if every time it shows up, the excuse is 'telepathy has never been confirmed.' How else would Tattletale know all the stuff she knows?

► **TT296720**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
I'm special.

► **SellerOfSausage** (Original Poster)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Holy crap! Is that really Tattletale? wait, how would we know?

Aww hell with it, give us some dirt. Are you guys heroes now? Villains with hearts of gold? Dish, dish, dish.

► **TT296720**  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
No proof. Rather not make it that easy. ;)

You should probably shave your beard though. It's pretty scruffy.

► **SellerOfSausage** (Original Poster)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Holy crap Holy crap Holy crap Holy crap Holy crap Holy crap Holy crap Holy crap.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 63, 64, 65**

 **Topic: Brockton Bay Wards - General Discussion  
In: Boards ► Teams ► Wards  
HiFidelity **(Original Poster) (Veteran Member)  
Posted On Jan 1st 2011:  
New thread for the new year. Go nuts.

Team leader:

Aegis - He can fly and he has an enhanced physiology that includes redundant organs and the ability to adapt to any damage that's done to him. Brute/Mover

Clockblocker - He can touch something/someone and freeze them in time for a random duration. Striker.

Gallant - He wears power armor that generates emotion-changing energy blasts. Tinker.

Chronicler - He makes partially transparent ghost-like duplicates of people that copy the actions of the original and can be redirected to new targets. Shaker/Master.

Shadow Stalker - She can make herself intangible. Breaker/mover/stranger.

Vista - She can warp and bend space, making distances shorter or longer and twisting them around. Shaker.

Veil - Basically he creates a black fog that's impossible to see through. Some people say it messes up other senses besides just sight.

See this thread for discussion about former members.

 **(Showing page 133 of 133)**

► **GathererOfLand** (Veteran Member)  
Replied On May 5th 2011:  
Dudethebomb

Actually, we do know that Aegis will graduate first. He's the team leader, and the team leader is always the oldest. That's the way it goes. When Aegis graduates, it'll go to whoever the next oldest is. Probably Clockblocker, but it might be Gallant. They don't exactly report that. But the fact that Aegis is the leader means he's the oldest.

Lee's Premier Brand Bull

*shrug* I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then.

PressSelectStartUp

Nope. Read this thread for more specifics, but basically if you see the 'verified cape' badge, the mods have photographic proof of who it is. If you see one of those, the account of the person talking has been verified to be who they say they are. Not that someone else couldn't hijack that account later, but... *shrug* It's as close to perfect as we can get, probably.

► **Arcenic Hope**  
Replied On May 6th 2011:  
 **This post has been deleted by a mod for personal attacks and the user has been banned for one week.**

► **CandylandCan**  
Replied On May 6th 2011:  
 **This post has been deleted by a mod for personal attacks and the user has been banned for one week.**

► **BobsMyUncle**  
Replied On May 6th 2011:  
 **This post has been deleted by a mod for personal attacks and the user has been banned for one week.**

► **Mama Bear** (Moderator)  
Replied On May 6th 2011:  
If I have to lock this thread, I will. The tragic events of last night are not an excuse for you guys to go off the rails. I've deleted several posts already, and I'm ready to hand out longer bans if you keep pushing it.

If you would like to discuss the murder like civilized people, you can find the thread for that here. Do not talk about it in this thread, and do not use this thread as an excuse to attack or vilify **any** member of the Wards.

The loss of such an important person is utterly tragic, but I will not allow it to turn into a witch hunt. This is a minor we're talking about, and one that has not been convicted of anything yet. Try to keep the lynch mob tendencies to a minimum.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 131, 132, 133**

 **Interlude 10B – Laserdream**

 _ **Wednesday, May 4th**_

Trapped. Voices gloating next to her ear, their hot breath harsh against her skin. Losing. Lost. Helpless.

Crystal Pelham jerked upward with a cry, flinging herself sideways while her hand shot out to fire a bolt of energy into the bonds that had trapped her. Even as she landed hard on the carpeted floor, the blonde girl was lifting her other hand, ready to summon more of the power to defend herself.

Carpeted floor. The thought registered with her belatedly, even as her eyes focused on the bonds she had destroyed. Her blankets. The blankets on her bed, where she'd been sleeping. In her bedroom. She wasn't a prisoner anymore. She wasn't with the Empire, with Kaiser and his collection of psychopaths.

Her sleep-addled brain had just managed to put all of that together when there was a soft knock against the bedroom door. It clicked open a moment later, and her mother was standing there in the doorway. The massive figure of Crystal's father stood just behind her. Both of them looked worried. "Crystal?"

"I'm fine," she replied automatically, the response coming without conscious thought by that point. She was already picking herself up off the floor, a quick glance at the clock confirming that it was still the middle of the night. Three in the morning, to be exact. She'd slept about two and a half hours that time.

Her parents exchanged glances before her mother came into the room. Sarah Pelham took a few steps over and embraced her tightly. Crystal flinched, her body tensing up reflexively at the embrace. She tried to stop herself immediately, but from the look on her mother's face, the woman noticed.

Damn it. Why did she react like that? It was her _mom_. It was a hug from her mother. She knew it wasn't a threat. She **knew** that. But as soon as she was embraced, as soon as those arms closed around her, Crystal had felt trapped again. She'd felt... helpless again. And now she'd upset her mother, the last thing she'd wanted to do. A hug. It was just a stupid hug, why couldn't she just keep it together?

While Crystal was busy silently rebuking herself for her own stupid reaction, her mother took her hand and squeezed it. "Sweetie, listen, okay? We still have the sleeping pills if you think-"

"No," Crystal interrupted sharply, head shaking even as she stepped back, subconsciously giving herself room. She didn't even notice what she'd done until she saw the look on her mother's face.

Fuck. Again. She hurt her mother again. Damn it, why? Why couldn't she just... just be okay?

"No sleeping pills," she pushed on. "No pills. No medicine. I'm not taking any more drugs. You don't know what they—I'm not taking anything. I need to be clear. I need to be... I can't take pills. Besides," she added, trying to make herself sound convincing. "It was just a stupid dream. Like I said, I'm fine."

Her father came into the room then, pausing to finger the remains of her bedding with a slight grimace. "Too bad we can't really say the same about your blankets." His attempt at a joke, weak as it was.

Instead of smiling, as she consciously knew he intended, Crystal flinched. The shame at her own inability to cope, the feeling of inadequacy, the constant tension that she couldn't stop. It was all wrong.

"I'm sorry," she managed quietly, stepping over to her bed to grab the remains. "I didn't mean to."

Her father's hand fell on her shoulder, turning Crystal around before he too embraced her. It wasn't long, just a quick hug that could barely be called that. Still, even then she couldn't help the way her muscles immediately coiled, the tension in her body instantly rising while her breath quickened.

Daddy. No, don't pull away. Even as her father released her, Crystal _wanted_ to cling to him. She wanted to hug both of her parents and beg them not to let her go. Instead, she looked away to hide her cringe.

"I'll grab the extra blanket out of the hall closet," her father announced, clearly trying to sound cheerful. "And I think the sheets in the wash are finished. Swap them in and it'll be as good as new."

"I'll do it," Crystal informed them. "You guys have work in the morning. I'm not going back to sleep any time soon anyway. I'll probably go flying or something for awhile, I need to clear my head."

Her parents exchanged glances again, and her mother spoke up a bit hesitantly. "Right now? Oh, Crissy, I'm not sure you should go out right now. It's late, and you'll be all by yourself. It's..."

"Damn it, why do people do that?" Crystal demanded, the words spilling out of her without thought. "You want me to feel like I'm safe, like I'm not helpless anymore? Then stop trying to coddle me. How many times have I gone out flying by myself? I'm eighteen years old, not three. You want me to stop feeling trapped? Then stop trapping me! You want me to believe that I can take care of myself, that I don't have to be afraid of everything? Then stop acting like I **should** be afraid of everything!"

As soon as she finished talking, Crystal regretted her tone. She took a breath and stepped over to embrace her mother, forcing herself to count to six before allowing herself to let go. "I'm going."

Before she could pull away completely, her mother caught her hand and squeezed it, her voice quiet, yet imploring. "We love you, Crissy. We just want to be there for you. We... we're trying to help."

"I know," Crystal acknowledged, returning the squeeze just a little bit while looking toward her mother, then her father. "I know. But you can't fix this by coddling me. You can't just lock me in my room and hope that nothing bad ever happens again. I need to figure this out. I need to get out there. I need to fight, not hide in my room and stick my fingers in my ears until I stop having nightmares.

"I love you, but my nightmares aren't just about me being safe. They're about me not being able to protect myself, not being able to **defend** myself. That's what I need to focus on. And until I know I _can_ protect myself, until I know I can fight, I won't be able to sleep and everything's going to get worse.

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

"Conflict?" Laserdream glanced back to her three teammates, taking in their general state and waiting a second to see what they did. Getting no reaction, she exhaled, then snapped her hand up and released a laser shot directly into the big six-armed gray man's face. The blast of energy knocked the man backwards to fall over the nearby car even as Crystal added, "How's that for conflict?"

The werewolf, or whatever he was, was leaping toward her. But even as the wolf lunged, Seraph intervened. One of her angel-figures appeared right beside Crystal and leapt to catch onto it in midair.

Meanwhile, the girl in the black and neon green costumed was shooting some kind of laser of her own toward them. Before it had crossed even half of the distance, however, one of Shielder's blue forcefields popped up into view and the blast completely fizzled. It didn't even look like it did anything.

Seraph's conjured construct and the wolf grappled together briefly before the angel abruptly changed shape, turning into a cage that was just barely large enough to contain the enormous canine. .

"Have a timeout, Maugrim," Victoria suggested with a smirk. "Or whatever your name was."

"Uh, guys, little help?!" The cry came from Archive, and Laserdream spun that way to find the younger girl flailing. There was gray... hand holding each of her wrists. That was it, just the hands, with some kind of green energy covering the spot where they would have been attached to the arm. Before they could move, the hands, which seemed to be as strong as they would be with a full sized man behind them, turned Archive around and gave her a shove toward the nearby wall. Just before she hit, the girl conjured that absorption field of hers, going right through the wall and into the building.

"Hey, wha—mmphgnn!" Seraph abruptly had one of those gray hands around her mouth, while a second one floated up and slapped her hard enough that her focus on the wolf's cage faltered and failed. Yet another hand covered her visor, blocking off her sight as all three of them hauled Vicky backwards. Which was bad. As long as Seraph couldn't _see,_ she couldn't redirect her constructs or make new ones. Even though the visor was something she'd created, the best she'd be able to do was disable it entirely, which would still leave the hand blocking her vision, only with it directly against her eyes by that point.

Four gray hands. The six-armed man. Crystal wheeled back around, her own hands snapping up to fire off two quick lasers that way. But the pavement where he had been was empty, the man already gone.

The White Company girl, Tenacity, let off another shot. Again, Shielder's forcefield blocked it, though she'd clearly put more power behind the blast that time since the shield shimmered from the impact.

Grimacing, Laserdream spared her cousin a quick glance. "Shielder, help Seraph, get the hands off her!" Then she launched herself off the ground. Inverting quickly in the air, she shot through the hole in the wall that Archive had left. It was small enough that she had to turn sideways as she passed through it, threading the needle before shooting into the room on the other side. A distant part of Crystal's brain was reminding her that this was somewhat similar to the way she'd ended up abducted and trapped the first time. But she forced that thought down as hard as she could while looking around quickly.

They were in the back of some kind of vintage clothing store. Vicky probably knew the owner's name. Hell, she probably knew the owner's favorite food, birthday, children's names, and alma mater.

Archive was down on her knees a few yards away, still wrestling with the hands that were holding onto her wrists. Before Crystal could intervene, the other girl rolled backwards toward a heavy wooden table laden with clothes. She kicked out with one foot, clearly activating her absorption field since her foot went right through the table leg, seeming to disintegrate a chunk of it. As the heavy table started to fall, Archive twisted herself around, forcing her arms back just far enough that the hands clutching onto her wrists were caught by the table as it fell. The thick wood slammed down onto the hands, knocking them off Madison's wrists and freeing her from their grasp so that she could roll out of the way.

As soon as the other girl was clear, Laserdream let loose at the hands before they could heave the fallen table off themselves. The lasers cut into the hands, thoroughly destroying them after a couple shots.

Both of them spared glances for one another before heading back for the hole to rejoin the other two.

As she shot back out, Crystal glanced toward Shielder just in time to see Tenacity let off another shot. The blue forcefield popped up... and shattered instantly, the protective shield collapsing.

"Either she's getting stronger or I'm getting weaker!" Shielder called over to them, his face sweating. "Last one took two shots to take it down. Pretty sure she'll go right through anything else I put up."

Victoria, meanwhile, was struggling to fight off the hands that were still covering her eyes and the wolf at the same time. The hands kept trying to shove her into the canine-cape's path, but Victoria obviously heard it coming and kicked out blindly. The energy construct that she used as a costume enhanced the strength of her blow to knock the wolf sideways into the nearby wall with a yelp of pain.

Then the girl flew straight up into the air, inverted, and slammed down face first into the ground. The impact was strong enough to almost flatten the hands covering her mouth and eyes, and they fell off, revealing Seraph's golden visor, still intact and perfect considering its construct-nature. There was, however, blood dripping out from under it. Victoria had hit the ground hard enough to bloody her nose, maybe even break it, through the protection of her own powers. Yet, rather than actually showing any pain or fear, Victoria gave a snarl of satisfaction while spinning toward the wolf. "Still wanna play?" she asked while summoning a massive sword into one hand as she leapt that way.

Shielder shouted a warning then, "Incoming!"

That time, the shot from Tenacity didn't just blow his shield apart in a single hit. It also carried on through, nearly taking out Eric himself. But Crystal had reacted instantly, catching hold of her brother before flying straight up into the air so that the blast could hit the building behind them. It did, but rather than blow through the structure like Crystal expected, the beam just fizzled, barely singing the bricks.

Tenacity adjusted her aim, firing up at them. Reflexively, Laserdream summoned her own forcefield, even though it was a very pale imitation of anything that Shielder could put up.

And yet, Tenacity's beam faltered against even that weaker forcefield the same way her first shot against Eric's had. Obviously, it wasn't just a matter of the girl putting more power behind her blasts, or getting stronger the longer she fought like Lung did. It seemed like every subsequent shot she landed against the same target was stronger. The more times she shot that same target, the more powerful her blasts were. Even if that target was technically something new like Eric's shields. Her power clearly interpreted them as all the same forcefield. Which meant that Laserdream's own weaker shields probably wouldn't last more than another hit or two.

Then there was a quiet noise of sharply expelled air, and Tenacity almost immediately stumbled to the side before collapsing, a dart sticking out of her neck.

"Tranquilizer," Archive announced, lowering the rifle that she had summoned. "I umm, I was gonna use it on the wolf, but Seraph knocked him into that building."

As if on cue, the wolf came racing back into view. Without pausing, it ran straight across the street and stopped next to the fallen woman. The canine figure shifted and transformed into the shape of a man in a skin tight gray costume as he gathered the unconscious Tenacity in his arms before darting into the building. The building where someone had already called for help.

Crystal let her brother go, allowing him to use his own power to hover in the air beside her. Then she launched herself, flying at the building like she had been shot out of a cannon. She was right on their heels. She shot through the open door, ready to defend herself, ready to fight, ready for anything.

Anything that was, except for nothing. Nothing at all. The room was empty. And a quick yet thorough inspection revealed that the entire _building_ was empty. There was no one there, and no sign of anyone.

The mercenaries, and whoever had called out for help, had disappeared.

"So you have no idea who was in the building?"

"Or why a White Company cell has set up shop here?"

The first question came from Director Piggot. The second came from Armsmaster. The two of them were sitting with Laserdream in the former's office on the top floor of the PRT building. Crystal had come in to report what had happened, telling the others to head home so that Amy could help Victoria.

"No," she answered. "To both questions. We tried to intervene, but by the time we got into the building, there was no one there. I already told you about the capes they had."

"It's Frontier's group," Armsmaster replied. "Their last big altercation was that bit with Faultline's Crew. It's possible that's what led them here. I'll see if we can have a... chat with Faultline herself, find out if it's part of something bigger."

Crystal started to say something else, but a figure abruptly appeared, dropping down through the ceiling with weapons already raised and firing.

Armsmaster reacted instantly, spinning up from his seat and lashing out with the halberd that leapt to his hand. The razor sharp bolt that would have struck Piggot right between the eyes was thrown off course, hitting the woman in the hand instead.

Crystal, meanwhile, had already thrown herself to the floor. Hand outstretched, she shot off a laser toward the figure that she only belatedly recognized.

 _Shadow Stalker?!_

Her laser went right through the girl as she went into her shadow form, hitting the opposite wall. Shadow Stalker gave her a look, then turned and leapt through the same wall, disappearing from sight.

Picking herself up, Crystal turned quickly toward the PRT director. "What the hell?! Why would Shadow Stalker-"

Her voice died in her throat. Piggot had fallen onto her side, her face pale. "P-poison," the woman hissed out in between desperate gasps for air. "Dart... poison..."

Eyes widening, Crystal whipped around toward Armsmaster. "She needs help! Do you have-"

Again, her voice died in mid-sentence, even as her horror and shock redoubled. Because it was immediately clear that Shadow Stalker had fired two bolts, not just one. And while the Protectorate hero had deflected the one meant for Piggot into her hand rather than her forehead, he had not been able to do the same for the one meant for him. Whether the second bolt was poison or not was immaterial, considering how deeply it had embedded itself through the man's shattered visor and into his eye.

Armsmaster... was dead.

 **Interlude 10C – Dinah**

 _ **Monday, May 2nd**_

Dinah Alcott stood in front of the closed door, hand on the knob. She'd been standing in the same spot for almost five minutes. In the background, she could hear Dorothy arguing with Cassie over some obscure fact from the first world war. The two of them were always arguing about various reasoning behind why various leaders did this or that. Actually, debating with Cassie was one of the few times that Dot actually seemed to come alive and express her own thoughts. Well, sort of her own thoughts. A lot of it was stuff that Gesellschaft had instilled in her. But still, there were thoughts and opinions inside it, and Dinah had a suspicion that Cassie purposefully antagonized the woman to bring them out.

Okay. No more stalling. No more over-thinking it. Just go in and do what you have to do. Be like Gabriele. Taking a breath and letting it out, Dinah pushed the door open and stepped inside the room.

"What do you want now, Dinah?" Vanessa Muir didn't bother to look over her shoulder to check who had come in. She just knew. The older girl was sitting in a chair across the bedroom from the doorway, facing the reinforced, bulletproof window. The plate that had held her breakfast was on a table nearby.

"I want a lot of things," Dinah answered before taking a step. She picked up the plate, looking at it for a moment before focusing her attention on the other girl. "But mostly I want to be your friend again."

"My friend?" Vanessa finally looked that way, her single good eye scornful. "We were never friends, Dinah. My people kidnapped you. I was your prison guard. You were just Kaiser's project. His brand new weapon." She paused then before shaking her head. "Except you weren't, were you? You were no more a real prisoner than you were my real friend. You were with Iron Rain and Purity the whole time."

Flinching just a little in spite of herself, Dinah gave a slight nod. Seeing that, Vanessa looked away once more, returning her gaze to the window. "Kaiser thought he was using you. He thought he was using me _to_ use you. But you were using both of us. You used him to get to me, and then you used me."

"I'm not sorry for that." Dinah spoke while fiddling with the plate in her hand. "You shouldn't say you're sorry for things you'd do again, and I would do it again. Because I needed help. The headaches were really bad, and Coil was going to take me. I needed help from someone to clear my head. That was you. I needed protection from Coil until I got my powers under control. That was Kaiser."

Seeing the look in the other girl's remaining eye, Dinah almost flinched. She set the plate down and faced her former prison guard in silence for a few seconds before continuing. "I'm not sorry for doing what I had to do to protect myself. I mean, you were right on board with kidnapping a little girl. You didn't know that I planned for it. You didn't know I had Gabriele and Kayden helping me. But you still helped keep a little girl prisoner just because Kaiser told you to. You were a better guard than someone like Hookwolf would've been. But you were still a prison guard, and you still didn't try to stop it."

"You think I could've stopped it?" Vanessa retorted sharply. "If I did anything except what Kaiser said to, I would've been in worse shape than you were. In the Empire, you do what **he** tells you to do."

"Kaiser's dead now." The voice didn't come from Dinah, but from the doorway where Gabriele stood. "And the Empire doesn't exist anymore. They're both gone. You don't have those excuses anymore."

Dinah watched as Vanessa scowled at the other woman, the frustration and emotion on her face readily apparent. "Why don't you just go away and leave me alone forever? That's what you're good at."

"I gave you a chance to come with us," Gabriele replied in a quiet voice as she stepped into the room.

"You **left**!" Vanessa's voice was suddenly a shout as she stood up. "You left us behind and ran off to play... to play hero! You and Kayden were the best people—the _only_ people – who could stand up to Kaiser, and you ran away! You ran off to rescue everyone else and you left the rest of us behind.

"I thought you were my friend. When I was growing up, I—I wanted to be like Iron Rain. You were my hero. I was just a kid and you were this big, powerful, amazing... I wanted to make you proud of me. But you left. You left!" There was anguish in the girl's voice from emotion that had been bottled up for years. "You left, and then you told this girl everything about me so that she could manipulate me."

"You're right, I did." Gabriele nodded. "And like Dinah, I'm not sorry for that. I'm sorry you were hurt by it. I'm sorry you feel betrayed and used. But you've been being used your whole life, Vanessa. When was the last time you made a real decision of your own, an important decision? When was the last time you directed your own life, the last time you made a choice that actually matters about who you are?"

"That doesn't make **you** using me any better!" Vanessa's voice rose a little more. "Everyone uses me. My whole power is _about_ me being used. It's not for me, it's for everyone else. I can't even use it on myself. Kaiser used me, the rest of the Empire used me, Dinah used me, you used me. Nothing's changed. You lock me in here, you tell me it's for my own good, but you're still not letting me choose!"

Panting a little, the one-eyed woman went on. "You know who cares about me? Preston. He cares. Maybe we don't have the very best storybook romance, but I do know he cares about me."

"He does," Gabriele confirmed. "But he's in prison now, and you have to figure out who you are without him. You can't keep defining yourself by what others turn you into, Vanessa. What you do next, it has to be your choice. This is your life. Yours. I made my choice to leave the Empire even though I grew up in it. It took an awfully big shock to make me wake up, but I did. I realized that there are bad people of every race. It's not blacks that are shitty, or Jews that are shitty, or Japanese people that are shitty. You know who's shitty? Shitty people. That's it. They exist everywhere. Those are the people we want to stop. That's how we clean up this city, how we make it better. By dealing with the shitty people, no matter what race they are. These are my choices. It's time for you to make a few of your own."

"Oh yeah," Vanessa retorted sarcastically. "I'll make a whole bunch of choices in here." She pantomimed thinking very hard. "Hmmm, should I look at that wall, or that one? I'm still a prisoner."

Gabriele glanced toward Dinah, then shook her head definitively. "No, you're not." She stepped aside, opening the door. "We can't just lock you up forever, Vanessa. If you want to run back to Hookwolf's little gang and be used by them some more, you can. Maybe they'll even succeed at breaking Victor out of prison. Maybe. But you'll still be the kind of person that I know you don't really want to be. The person you only were because you grew up in it. The same kind of person I was, doing the same things I did, before my father was murdered and I had to really look at my life for the first time. I had the chance to make the choice about what to be, and I took it. It's only fair that you have the same choice."

Vanessa's eye moved to the door, then back to Dinah for a moment before returning to Gabriele. "You expect me to believe you're just going to let me go? Without me, Dinah can't use her power as often."

Gabriele gave a single nod. "You're right. Dinah isn't as effective without you. **We** would be more effective with you. We want you to join us, Vanessa. We want you to be a part of the team. But we're not going to force you. That's what Max did. Max manipulated people, used them, blackmailed them, coerced them, anything he had to do to get what he wanted. But we're not doing that, because this has to be your choice. Your decision. You have to decide who you are. Stay with us and help clean up the city, go to Hookwolf, leave the city, settle down and stop being a cape, try to break out Victor on your own, get a new partner, whatever. As long as it is **your** choice, we won't try to stop you. But this is something _you_ have to decide. Not Victor. Not Kaiser. Not Dinah. Not me. Just you, Vanessa.

"So decide, once and for all. Who are you? And who do you want to be?"

 _ **Thursday, May 5th**_

"They're coming," Dinah announced a few nights later. She was standing on the roof of a building, watching four pairs of headlights come toward them. A quick check with her power had provided the answer. One hundred percent chance that the incoming cars were the people they were waiting for.

She glanced back toward the rest of the Faithful, all of them gathered on top of this building. They'd only just arrived barely a couple of minutes earlier, and her heart was hammering at the thought of what was about to happen, what they had to stop. If they didn't stop it, the numbers for what would happen to the city plummeted dramatically. They had to try to put a stop to this, if they could.

She wasn't Dinah right now, the girl reminded herself. Not in costume. Now, she was Pythia, a name that Cassie had helped her pick out. Her costume, provided by Gabriele, was a green bodysuit with light armor lining that was supposed to stand up against small arms fire, though it would still hurt. The costume extended up into a turtleneck that attached to a matching green mask that covered the lower half of her face. Over top of the green suit, she wore a white hood and cloak. The hood covered part of the top half of her face, which would have left only her eyes exposed if she hadn't been wearing goggles. The mask over her mouth and nose had a filtration system that would protect her from most toxins and gases, while the goggles were meant to shield her from being blinded. All courtesy of Gabriele, thanks to the woman's contacts and resources with various tinkers around the country.

"Is Hookwolf there?" The question came from the woman behind Dinah, and she turned to look that way even as Gabriele answered. "He won't be in the first wave. They'll send grunts in first to soften up the resistance. Maybe Alabaster, but the big hit won't come until they see how the defense reacts. He's not the tactical genius Kaiser was, but he's not dumb. You know how Hookwolf operates, Aset."

Aset, the name that Vanessa had chosen for herself. It was supposed to be the original name of the Egyptian goddess Isis, though Dinah was pretty sure that Vanessa had also chosen it because she found the similarity to the word 'asset,' which she was to any team that had her, to be amusing. The name was part of not only changing who she was, but also giving the PRT and the public at large reasonable doubt as to who she had been before. Sure, everyone would _know,_ but they'd have reasonable cause not to immediately arrest her. Which, according to Kayden and Gabriele, was important to the PRT.

Vanessa's costume was different too. Now, she wore a skintight black suit with a utility belt and holster for a pistol on her right hip. Over top of the suit, she wore a dark blue chestplate. Her black mask left the lower half of her face uncovered, with white lenses over her eyes that gave off a bright glow (though that could be dimmed), and the top of her head was exposed, leaving brown hair exposed.

She'd stayed. After everything that had happened, after everything they did, Vanessa had chosen, in the end, to stay with them. She made sure to point out that it was just a test, and she might choose to leave at any time. Still, she was here. For now. This, however, would be both her first time in public under her new identity, and her first time facing her former teammates. Obviously, she sounded nervous.

By that point, the four approaching vans had all screeched to a stop right below them, across the street from the PRT building where the troops on guard duty were already coming out to investigate. There were ten of them, twice the number that would ordinarily be at the doors on an average night.

But then, this wasn't an average night. The PRT was on high alert after what had happened just under thirty minutes earlier. The word was out in spite of their attempt to keep it quiet. Someone had spilled the beans, and now it was everywhere. Armsmaster was dead and Director Piggot would soon join him. And most of the remaining Protectorate and Wards were off chasing the person they thought was responsible, one of their own people. Dinah knew better, but she also knew they wouldn't listen to her.

She'd also known, confirmed by her power, that Hookwolf and his gang of 'Chosen' would take advantage of the chaos and try to free the rest of their people. Worse, Hookwolf would probably want that kind of chaos to continue, so the odds were high that he'd make sure Piggot didn't survive her injuries. And since she was being taken care of in the medical wing of the PRT building rather than a hospital, both of the Chosen's most wanted targets were right here, just waiting for them to attack.

"Now," Kayden announced while lifting into the air. Gabriele did the same using a metal disc beneath her feet, and Cassie made her own larger disc rise up a foot into the air before waiting for Dinah to join her along with Nicholas, Dorothy, and Vanessa. Then the disc flew off after the other two women.

The Chosen thugs didn't know what hit them. They had just attacked the PRT troops when a pair of blasts from Kayden utterly demolished two of the vans they had arrived in. A second later, Browbeat dropped off Cassie's disc, landing right in the middle of three of the men. A hard elbow to the face of one put the man on the ground before the obscenely muscled boy caught the other two and hurled them away to crash against one of the other vans.

The rest of the surprised Nazi footsoldiers whirled toward the attack, but with the combination of Kayden, Gabriele, and Cassie flinging their powers around, they were quickly dispatched.

"Hold it!" The remaining lead PRT soldier came forward, his weapon raised still. "Purity, Iron Rain. What do you people want?"

"We're here, if you hadn't noticed," Kayden answered smoothly, "to help you. And I would rather you not call me Purity anymore." Her hand indicated her own changed costume. Where before it had been a simple white bodysuit, the new one was dark blue, with an actual mask that covered her entire face while leaving a fake blonde ponytail sticking out the back to throw people off even further, even if she didn't keep her powers on all the time. When her powers _were_ active, gold designs up and down the suit would glow brightly.

"The name is Radiant. This," she indicated Gabriele beside her, "is Watershed. And like I said, we're here to help."

While the man was still clearly trying to decide if he believed her, Gabriele spoke up. "We don't have much time. The Chosen will be sending more troops any second. We'd rather work _with_ you and watch each other's backs. And besides, a little birdie told us that your director won't live past the hour without help. We can provide that."

Kayden, or rather, Radiant, nodded. "Aset can heal Director Piggot. Give her a chance and she will save her life. Let us help you. Please. We're only here to help."

Still, the man hesitated. But there were headlights already approaching, and he finally nodded. "Do it. I'll call it in. They'll let you through. But make one wrong move, and I swear..."

"Go, Aset," Radiant ordered. "Pythia, go with her. You're not ready for a fight like this. Lovecraft and Contact," she looked toward Dorothy and Cassie respectively. "Get out of sight and stay back until they commit themselves."

Dinah—Pythia she reminded herself – was already running alongside Aset and the PRT agent that was sent along to escort them through the building to where Piggot was being taken care of. As they ran, she asked, "What happened to Panacea? Shouldn't she be here to heal the director?"

"She was on her way," the agent replied a bit breathlessly. "But they were attacked by some of Coil's men. They aren't going to make it in time. So if you're fucking with us right now..."

"We're not," Pythia assured him.

"I'll heal your leader," Aset confirmed. "But that doesn't mean she's not a vicious cunt. Lucky her, Pythia says the city gets worse if she's not around."

"No arguments here," the agent replied before pressing his hand against the pad beside the door. Then they were inside, and running past other startled personnel, who got out of the way as their escort called, "Move! Healer coming through! Out of the way!"

They reached the medical wing, skidding around the corner just in time to see one of the doctors collapse to the floor, blood spilling from the hole in the side of his head. Behind him stood two of the Chosen's footsoldiers, each of them holding silenced pistols.

One looked up, spotted them, and cursed. "Finish off the pig bitch," he spat while raising his gun. "I'll deal with them."

He opened fire, forcing their agent escort to dive out of the way. But Aset had already put a hand on Pythia's shoulder, and the two bullets that struck the younger girl's chest bounced right off of her.

"Strength," Aset spoke in a low voice before touching Dinah again, removing the invincibility and adding super strength instead.

Testing it, Pythia grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher off the wall and hurtled it. The gunman recoiled, but the metal cylinder still struck him hard, knocking the man to the floor while sending his weapon clattering away.

"Speed," Aset had a hand on Pythia again, switching her granted power once more. "Go!"

Dinah moved. In an instant, she covered the whole distance between herself and the hospital room. It was like the whole world was moving in slow motion. Even as she raced into the room, she could see the second gunman pointing his gun toward his helpless target. In another second, he'd pull the trigger.

She didn't give the man that second. Even as his finger tightened, Pythia caught the gun and snatched it out of his hand, hurtling the weapon away while it was firing.

Then their escort was there, firing a tranquilizer shot into the neck of the creep before he could recover from having his gun taken away.

Panting hard as the body fell, the PRT agent looked to Pythia. "Is she..."

"He didn't kill her," Dinah replied, raising her gaze toward Aset. "Ready?"

For a moment, Vanessa just stood there, staring at the figure in the bed. Then she gave a slight nod and stepped around the two of them, extending her hand toward Piggot. "It's not instant. But it'll stop her from dying, and it'll give your doctors time to stabilize her."

Still panting, the man nodded. "It's better than we had before. If you hadn't shown up, I'm pretty sure she'd be dead.

"So for what it's worth, thanks. I guarantee we'll remember this. And if the rest of your team out there really helps keep the rest of that garbage from raising hell around here, well... you probably just changed a lot of people's minds about you.

"Maybe you guys do deserve a second chance."


End file.
